Women in Classical Greece

In Classical Greece, men's domination over women is clearly apparent in each social, economic, and political arena. According to this period, women exist because their existences are necessary in order to produce male heir for the continuity of the state. For this reason, women's roles are limited to procreation and marriage and they are not allowed to have economic and political rights, and their social roles are very restricted. According to Classical Greece, women only exist to produce male heir for the sake of the continuity of the state so women are expected to serve to this aim by being married a male citizen and producing children and their social role is only to be a mother; as a result of that, even if Spartan women have more economic, political and social rights than Athenian women who are totally under control of men socially, politically and economically, patriarchy is a dominant system determining women's lives.

In classical Greece, the unique social role of women is to be a mother. That means women are a symbol and a tool to produce male heir for the continuity of the state. The most important institution is the family and women's social roles are limited to continue this institution and they are just responsible for duties inside home. In this time, only women who produce male heirs are respected. According to Classical philosophers, women have strong feelings but weak mind so their natures are not appropriate to take their own decisions but to produce children and to serve their husbands as a slave. Therefore, women are only one step above slaves.

During classical period, women's social rights are limited. They spend their whole lives in home and try to fulfill their main duties which are to produce and bring up their children and manage to household, "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"1. Moreover, women have very limited freedom outside the home. The more a woman has high status, the less she can go outside, "In ancient Athens, women in wealthy families were confined inside their homes all their lives" (Hughes, S, S & B, p: 82,). Only poor women and slaves women are allowed to work in public sphere, "only the women the poorest clases moved among men with a certain freedom, going to the market to sell bread or vegetables, or working the land" (Cantarella, E, p: 46). A wife cannot go outside without permission of her husband. They only can attend weddings, funerals, some religious festivals and visit female neighbors. They have no right to go to even a market so in order to buy something their guardians or slaves go outside for them. Women and men do not socialize together so if a man has a guest in his home, his wife is expected to remain in the quarter "They were confined to their homes and were expected to stay out of sight if the husband invited guests to their home. There were cults to which women might belong and it was possible to socialize on occasion with other women, but beyond that women were expected to remain invisible at home" 2

Spartan women are less suppressed in social life than Athenian women. Athenian women are required to be invisible to public eye in each period of their lives. Athenian girls are not allowed to go public school but they are educated by tutors in home, "Girls of the Classical Period (500-323 BC) in Athens were not given the same opportunities for education as the boys were. In fact, in H.I. Marrou's wonderful book, A History of Education in Antiquity, there is no mention of education for Athenian girls at all during the Classical Period"2. Their domestic education are generally about household skills, weaving, sewing, cooking and other household jobs and little on mythology, religion. That means from birth, a girl is educated and prepared for her main duty that is to make new male citizen by marriage.

On the other hand, Spartan women have more freedom. Their roles are not limited to marriage and procreation, "The women in Sparta who were potential mothers of citizens were freed of all duties except the bearing and rising of babies. In other Greek cities mothers lived quietly at home and ate sparingly when they were pregnant. In Sparta women exercised, ate and drank freely"3. Therefore, they sometimes are in public sphere. When girls reach to school age, they are expected to attend public school although for a short period than boys, "In Sparta, girls also went to school at age 6 or 7. They lived, slept and trained in their sisterhood's barracks. No one knows if their school was as cruel or as rugged as the boys' school, but the girls were taught wrestling, gymnastics and combat skills"4. Unlike to Athenian view that is citizen women cannot go outside, in Sparta, citizen women have freedom to go outside.

Women, in classical period of Greece, have no political, legal and less civic rights. They cannot engage in political and public affairs, "In Athens, the best known, women had little legal independence and were expected to be under the control and protection of their fathers or husbands" (Rowlandson, J, p: 162). This is because women are isolated from society in order to fulfill their main roles that do not require participating in society, according to Athenian aspect. Law about women is based on the aspect which is women's main role is to produce their own male citizens by marriage, "[T]he Greeks worked out and translated into rigorous laws an ideology that centered the life of women around childbearing functionsÐ'... the first written laws were concerned first with regulating female sexual behavior, thus demonstrating that they considered respect for that fundamental law, an orderly reproduction of family groups and thereby of citizens, to be absolutely necessary to the life of the nascent city" (Cantarella, E, p: 39, 40). According to law, if a man has sexual intercourse with a married women, her husband can kill this man in order to protect his heir, "A Draconian law allowed a man to kill on the spot any man caught having sex with his wife, mother, daughter, sister or concubine. This goes well beyond the usual rule in the Ancient World defining adultery as sex with a married women not his wife, and appears to give a man ownership of the chastity of all "his" women"5. Women do not also have divorce right as well as right of taking a decision related to her marriage, "Marriage did not require a young bride's consent, as she was simply passed from the protection of her father to that of her husband". Only her husband decides whether