Women in Athens and Sparta

The classical Greeks were male-centric, and the public role of women was quite diminished. In Athens only men could vote, inherit property, and take legal action. Women were confined to their homes, where, with the help of female slaves, they managed the household and raised children. Boys were educated in private schools from the ages of six to fourteen, but girls did not receive education outside the household. Sue Blundell notes that the Greeks believed that women needed “intercourse and pregnancies” to open up their bodies “to create the unobstructed space that is the mark of a fully-operational female,” so the Athenians generally married off their daughters shortly after they reached puberty, moving them from the protection of their fathers to that of their husbands.
      The men they married were often older, and it was their responsibility to help curb their wives’ sexual appetites, for women’s psychology was viewed—by medical theorists and the general culture—as wanton and uncontrollable. Aristotle cautioned against young women masturbating, for girls “who experience sexual gratification become even more licentious, as do boys, if they do not guard against one temptation or another.” It was a husband’s duty, as Aristophanes notes in the Lysistrata, to satisfy and control his wife, not only to ensure his reputation would be intact, but to create an heir for his property.
      Most of an Athenian man’s property was acquired through inheritance, and it was important to him (and to the state) that the transfer went to legitimate heirs. Thus, women were secluded from the company of other men: their quarters were apart from the formal dining area, where the man of the house would entertain his male companions; women were often escorted in public; and social affairs were sex segregated.

Nude woman with two dildoes, found on the inside of an Athenian wine cup, c. 520 BCE. The painter depicts the licentious, wanton quality that was assumed to be part of the psychological makeup of women. British Museum.

      In Athens, then, there was an ideal of an obedient woman, who lived under the protection of her father or husband (or uncle or son), and whose primary responsibilities were to produce and educate children, manage the house, spin, weave, and oversee the preparation of food.
      In Sparta, there was a very different set of circumstances for women, who, unlike their Athenian counterparts, were permitted to inherit property and did: Aristotle, writing in the 4th century BCE, estimated that two-fifths of Sparta’s property was owned by its women (Aristotle thought this contributed to the weakness of Spartan society). Also, because the men of Sparta were continually away from home—either training, on missions, at war, or at the barracks—Spartan women by default became the dominant figures in the household. Children were raised in a home where the male of the house simply was not present, so when a husband-father returned from the barracks or a campaign, he would have little authority. “Female domestic power” in Sparta, as Sue Blundell states, “was accepted and possibly even officially encouraged.”
      Spartan women were known for their independence and athleticism—Aristophanes’ portrait of Lampito dramatizes this reputation in the Lysistrata. The girls were trained in physical fitness, took part in athletic events such as running and wrestling, and Sparta’s system of education, according to Plato, included training women in the arts: “There are not only men but also women who pride themselves on their intellectual culture,” he writes in Protagoras. Spartan women had better things to do than to spin and weave, tasks that they gave their servants.

Web sites related to Women in Athens and Sparta:

Minnesota State University, Mankato has several EMuseum pages on
      Athens
      Women in Sparta
      Women in Athens

James C. Thompson's pages on Women in Ancient Greece, part of his larger site about women in the ancient world; privately published.

"Women in the Greek World," a series of lecture notes by David Noy, University of Wales, Lampeter, for a course he led in 2000.

The dmoz/Open Directory Project's listing of sites related to women in ancient Greece; many of the links go to university-related sites; published by Netscape.

Where to go:

About Ranjit Bolt, the adaptor, and Aristophanes, the playwright
The war between Sparta and Athens
Theatre and festivals in classical Athens
Lysistrata and Old Comedy
The "Happy Idea" of the Lysistrata

Lysistrata page
IU Theatre and Drama home page
Indiana University Bloomington home page