Women in Athens Flashcards
Aristotle, Politics
- typical of what an educated Athenian man might think
- ‘the male is by nature fitter for command than the female, just the older and full-grown is superior the younger and more immature’
- ‘inequality is permanent’
- ‘the male rules over the female’
- ‘silence is a woman’s glory’
Extract from Pericles’ Funeral Speech of 429BC
- state funeral for the war-dead -> end of the first year of war
- significant occasion -> not typical -> patriotic, grand, inspiring, proud -> emotional
- dramatised -> less accurate
- Pericles -> Athenian leader at its height
- Thucydides -> historian -> historian 5th c. B.C. -> male -> shows male attitude towards women
- ‘the greatest glory of a woman is to be the least talked about men’
Lysistrata
- Aristophanes -> male comic playwright -> 5th c. B.C.
- male construct -> played by men, watched by men -> shows men were interested in women
- sex strike -> political, social satire -> stereotypes, caricatures
- ‘you did not let us grumble’
- ‘indoors’
- ‘you’d have regretted it if you hadn’t kept quiet’
- ‘assembly’ -> disenfranchised
- ‘spinning’
- ‘he’d give me a good clout on the head’
- ‘war will be the responsibility of men’
Demosthenes, Against Neaera 122
- woman being prosecuted
- Demosthenes -> lawyer; legal speech -> 300s B.C.
- ‘phratry’ -> social subdivision of an Athenian tribe
- ‘deme’ -> geographic division of Attica
- ‘Hetaerai’ -> foreign women -> intelligent, amusing, fun to have at a party
- ‘pallakai’ -> live-in lovers, foreign mistresses
- ‘wives [kept] for the procreation of legitimate children, and to be faithful guardians of our households’
Hesiod, Works and Days 695-705
• Hesiod -> archaic poet -> 8/7th c. B.C.
• ‘not much short of 30 years and
not much more: that is the right age of marriage’
• ‘the wife should be four years past puberty and marry in the fifth’
• ‘teach’ -> women were uneducated
• ‘marry a girl who lives near you’
• ‘laughing-stock to the neighbours’
• ‘a man has no better possession that a good wife, and none more dreadful than a bad one’ - objectifying -> recognises pros to having a wife
• ‘just waiting for the next meal’ -> expense
• ‘she scorched him’ -> emotional
• ‘however vigorous he may be’ -> punishment
A pyxis showing a wedding procession
- good primary evidence
- on the journey back to the husband’s house
- could’ve been present at a wedding -> probably commissioned for the couple who got married -> probably wealthy
- torch -> part of the gamos
- the fact that it was painted meant that weddings were celebratory
Limitations:
• who did it belong to?
• when was it made?
• how was it made?
Socrates asks Ischomachus (a new husband), about his wife
Xenophon, Oikonomikos 7.10-7.11
Context
- is Ischomachus typical? Seems to be generous and thoughtful
- dramatic monologue -> literary
Socrates asks Ischomachus (a new husband), about his wife
Xenophon, Oikonomikos 7.10-7.11
Quotes
- ‘educate’
- ‘you received her’ -> trade
- ‘not quite fifteen at the time’
- ‘brought up to see and hear as little as possible, and to ask the fewest questions’
- ‘knowing how to take wool and make a dress, and seeing how her mother’s handmaidens has their daily spinning-tasks assigned to them?’
- ‘control of appetite and self-indulgence’
- ‘offered sacrifice and prayed’
- ‘happiness’
- ‘many a vow to heaven to become all she ought to be’
- ‘domesticated’ ‘tamed’
- ‘after great consideration (I for myself and your parents for you)’
- ‘who would be the best partner for house and children’
- ‘take counsel together’
- ‘common interest’, ‘common blessing’, ‘belongs to both of us’, ‘common property’, ‘common fund’
- ‘fight our battles’
Lysias, On the Murder of Eratosthenes
Context
- Eratosthenes was having an affair with his wife
- court case, speech (defence) -> manipulated presentation of info -> persuasive, in his interests exaggerate
- classical -> late 400s
Lysias, On the Murder of Eratosthenes
Quotes
- ‘neither harassed her nor gave her too much freedom’
- ‘trust’
- ‘handed over everything that I had to her, thinking this to be the greatest indication of our closeness’
- ‘intelligent and thrifty housekeeper’
- ‘she was seen by this fellow and after a time she was seduced’
- ‘corrupt her with his clever talk’
- ‘top floor equal to the ground floor, corresponding to the women’s quarters and the men’s quarters’
- ‘so stupid to think that my wife was the most chaste in the city’
Xenophon Oikonomikos 7:35-37
Context
- Xenophon -> highly respected ex-general + polymath -> reasonably wealthy
- advice for a wife
Xenophon Oikonomikos 7:35-37
Quotes
- ‘stay inside’
- ‘sending out the servants with outdoor tasks’
- ‘supervise the indoor servants’
- ‘receive any income, meet any expenses and look after the surplus, so that you don’t spend a whole year’s budget in one month’
- ‘you must see that the right clothes are made for those who need them’
- ‘you must see that the dried corn is fit for consumption’
- ‘looking after any servant who falls ill’
Lekythos (oil flask) vase showing the work done by women
- 17cm
- archaic -> 500s B.C.
- used for massages, cooking, lighting, treatments, cleaning
- shows woman creating thread
- shows looming
- shows woman measuring scales
