Spartan Women

Question 1

What did Aristotle say Spartan women were?

Answer 1

“Again, the license of the Lacedaemonian women defeats the intention of the Spartan constitution, and is adverse to the happiness of the state.”

Question 2

What were women considered?

Answer 2

Spartiates.

Question 3

Despite being considered {…}, what couldn’t women do?

Answer 3

They could not attend the public ecclesia or go to war.

Question 4

Could Spartan women leave the house?

Answer 4

Yes

Question 5

Why were Spartan women treated so highly?

Answer 5

They were needed to give birth to strong, healthy children, as Sparta had a need for warriors, and its child mortality rate was high because, a, they kept leaving them out on mountains, and b, they didn’t have medicine.

Question 6

What would happen if a Spartan woman gave birth to 3+ sons?

Answer 6

Rewarded special privileges, like war veterans who had triumphed on the battlefield several times.

Question 7

Farms and women?

Answer 7

Women managed their husband’s farm and their families’ slaves. Weaving and spinning was a helot’s job, and it was considered below a Spartan woman to weave. Men could only be soldiers, and so women took care of their estates. They could also own their own property (highly coveted heiresses.) If their husbands died, the land would go to their children, not them.

Question 8

Syssitions and women?

Answer 8

Women provided monthly food for the syssition, however could not attend.

Question 9

Women and schooling?

Answer 9

Paid for agoge fees; boys entered agoge at age 7. Girls did sports with them, such as wrestling, throwing javelin, discus and ball games (according to Plutarch). Girls lived at home, and were possibly organised into bands.

Question 10

Women took part in:

Answer 10

Gymnastic, musical and choral competitions.

Question 11

What did women wear?

Answer 11

Short skirts and revealing clothes, and they had no need for escorts.

Question 12

Women and marriage?

Answer 12

Married around 18; marriage took place in secret; private ceremony; bride’s hair cut of; dressed in male clothes; groom slept with her than went back to barracks; could only live together when man was 30 - longer time apart made for healthier sons, supposedly,

Question 13

Women and sex?

Answer 13

Adultery encouraged - if an older Spartan couldn’t get his wife pregnant, younger Spartan could sleep with her; childless men could request another man’s wife bear his children is she had been a strong child bearer.

Question 14

Women as girls?

Answer 14

Spartan females = more nourished than any other Greek baby girls, and sometimes more than Spartan boys!

Question 15

Women and burial rites?

Answer 15

Women only got their names on their gravestones if died during childbirth.

Question 16

Spartan polis (population)?

Answer 16

Predominantly women - men off at war.

Question 17

Wife of King Leonidas?

Answer 17

Gorgo

Question 18

Gorgo said:

Answer 18

“Because we are the only women who give birth to men.” In response to why only women in Greece to ‘rule’ their husbands. In other words, only the men with the self-confidence to accept women as equal were men at all.

Question 19

Women and war?

Answer 19

Sent sons to agoge to be warriors; exposed child at birth; killed sons who deserted army or lost.

Question 20

Mother whose son deserted his post?

Answer 20

‘Off to your fate through the darkness, vile scion,/ who makes such a hatred/ So the Eurotas flow not e’en for the timorous/ deer./ Worthless whelp that you are, vile remnant, be/ off now to Hades;/ Off! for never I bore Sparta’s unworthy son.

Question 21

A mother to a son who died in battle?

Answer 21

“Let the poor cowards be mourned, but, with/ never a tear do I bury/ You, my son, who are mine, yea, and are/ Sparta’s as well.”