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TBR HISTORY ARTICLE -  A HISTORICAL PARADOX: WOMEN IN SPARTA & ATHENS

SURPRISINGLY TO SOME, WOMEN IN SPARTA WERE TREATED MUCH BETTER than
in Athens. Did this “women’s lib,” if we can so call it, lead to
the decline and fall of Sparta, despite the vaunted bravery of its
warriors? The author leaves the question open, but our own opinion is
that perpetual war, leading to the loss of “the flower of Sparta’s
young men,” and an invidious caste system, were the real causes of
the downfall.

By Matthew Raphael Johnson, Ph.D.

In Sparta, the strongly statist and militarist organization of the
society led (strange as it seems) directly to the equal, if not
superior, treatment of women in every area of importance. On the other
hand, Athens treated its women virtually as slaves.

Likely the most systematic treatment of the subject of Spartan women
is a 2002 work of the same name by Sarah Pomeroy. Her book deals with
the equality of Spartan women with men, and their superiority in
certain areas. Pomeroy believes Spartan coeds had an equal education
with the men, dealing with the same subjects and ideas. Women trained
with the men in the basic public gymnastics so important to this
militaristic society, exercising in the nude together. Sparta was the
only Greek polity that legislated that females were to be educated and
do gymnastics with males, on an equal footing.

Pomeroy holds that one of the bases of this equality was that women
married later in life than elsewhere in Greece. This time lag before
marriage meant women could spend more time on their studies before the
responsibilities of married life. For Spartan women, the average age
of marriage was likely around 20 (Pomeroy 7).

The Spartan state could be called a service state. It was a completely
mobilized military society constantly fighting with Persia, Athens or
even its colonial population. Hence, it is not surprising that the
virtues of loyalty, strength and courage were central in the Spartan
population. In the Spartan case, the question of “eugenics” became
important. Unscientific attempts at breeding powerful male soldiers
meant the women who bore them supposedly needed to be powerful, which
became the true basis for female domination in many spheres of life
(Pomeroy 34-5).

The ideal mother of Spartan soldiers was to be in good physical shape,
intelligent and aggressive. These qualities were believed to pass on
to the offspring.

But the state and army were the totality of Spartan political
consciousness. Everyone served. The fact that all Spartan citizens
needed to serve the state acted as a sort of leveler.

Women needed to be strong. But this strength meant women needed to
partake in the same virtues of honor and strength that the men had.
The strenuous exercises of the Spartan women developed their famed
muscular bodies.

In the economic sphere, Aristotle writes that the Spartan women were
superior in nearly every respect, but especially in property. Several
ancient sources hold that women controlled the real estate of Sparta,
as much as two-thirds of it (Cartledge, 137).

There are several reasons behind this: First, as many writers have
noted, Spartan society nearly always had a shortage of men, because of
the constant warfare and the practice of eliminating all non-perfect
newborn males (but never the females). As a result, the competition
for strong and intelligent women was often intense, giving women
tremendous leverage. Since bachelorhood was illegal and, regardless,
looked upon as shame, women had an even greater advantage (Cartledge
146).

Sharing a woman (polyandry) was common, so long as it led to the woman
eventually becoming pregnant. It has been theorized that women married
to older men ordinarily, and with the support of her older husband and
the state, also had relations with younger, stronger men for the sake
of the Spartan eugenics program. [Polyandry seems to have been the
human norm in prehistoric times.—Ed.]

But since the state was in charge of such reproduction and mandated
eugenically friendly relations, even the basic life of the family was
something that was controlled by the state, not by the husband. Even
more, this also means, since the young males were raised by the army
for the sake of military service, even the upbringing of children was
not really a family affair. Hence, the man of the house had little
power indeed, especially if beyond military age. The Spartan state, it
seems, removed all the traditional buttresses for male power in the
home through its obsession with unity and martial skill.

But as the wars wore on, with heavy casualties, the proportion of
males in the population declined steadily. Since Spartan women could
hold and control property, the high rate of male attrition led to an
economic matriarchy that was commented upon throughout the Greek
world, starting around 490 B.C. (Cartledge 147-8). The very fact that
the men were usually in the soldiers’ mess throughout their young
years (up to age 30), meant women were alone and, hence, in full
control of the household.

Powell’s 1997 work on the Greek world repeats many of the above
facts. It is Powell that has made the case that it was the male
dominance in the military that led to female dominance in the economy
(Powell 230).

ATHENIAN WOMEN

The condition of Athenian women is the polar opposite of Spartan
women. But the reasons for this are curious. Athenian women have been
consistently portrayed as being in constant servitude, not too far
removed from slavery (Savage 22). In fact, Savage himself holds that
the increase in female bondage in Athens is a result of a reaction
against the highly liberated women of Sparta. As Athens sought to
differentiate itself from its powerful southern rival, it portrayed
Spartan women as domineering, an oversexed, power-hungry tribe of
human beings. Women, the Athenian men said, were protected rather than
enslaved in Athens (Savage 23). Athenians sought to portray Spartan
women as a licentious group whose desire for power would eventually
upset the Spartan state itself.

The testimony of Athenian women in court was not admissible except in
murder cases. The vast majority of women were not educated and had
little contact with other people.

Nevertheless, Athenians thought this regime was protective, rather
than dominating, over women (Just 28). It should be noted that some
recent research has suggested that this tyranny was mitigated far more
than the average writer seems to think, and that women did have
political and legal rights far beyond what Just says (cf. esp.
Rotroff _et al_., 2006; she argues that recent pottery finds show
women very active in the agora [market or gathering place], esp.
9-12).

This does not answer the question as to the servitude of women, since
Athenian men were also warriors, sometimes in the field for months at
a stretch.

What is the difference here? There are two ways to approach it. First,
the nature of democracy itself. This is important. As the old
aristocracy gave way to the democratic polis, the idea of oration and
discussion became dominant. But this, in turn, means that the values
of reason, balance and even asceticism become paramount. The Athenian
mind did not believe that this was the domain of woman (Just 163).

The “social contract” in Sparta seems to be that women can run the
economy so long as the men run the military—hence creating an
equality. If women were so considered in Athens, they too would be
invited to the agora. So the question has still not been answered.

An answer might come from Eliza Gamble. She holds that the distinction
in treatment derives from the racial background of the women
themselves. Gamble holds that the women of ancient Athens were
basically imported from Asia by the Ionians of Attica (who left their
land without women [Gamble 319]). Therefore, the racial distinction is
what leads to the seclusion of women, since the tradition was that
these women were basically war booty, sex slaves who were to serve the
needs of the man. Hence, even the old aristocracy was radically
misogynistic, since these women, racially, were not Greeks at root,
and hence, could be exploited (Gamble 320). She writes:

As these women were foreigners they were entitled to little or no
respect from their captors. However, as they were to become the
mothers of Greek citizens, they must necessarily be “protected,”
or in other words, must be kept in seclusion. (319)

Therefore, unlike the Spartans, these Atticans, or Ionians who left
Attica in search of conquest, left without women and hence, when
attacking the Carians, destroyed the male population and took the
women as slaves, who were to create Greek citizens. The compromise
solution was to seclude the women as protection. This, in other words,
was the basis of the ideology that led to women being in servitude
(Gamble 319).

This compromise that is laid out by Gamble is further described in the
four major classes of women that the invaders created. First, and the
only free woman, was the wife. They were only procreators with no
social role whatever. They were to be “protected” solely on the
basis of being the mothers of Greek children. Under them were the
flute players, the musicians and dancing girls, who had both a
religious and social significance. They were prostituted after the
performance, in which they were to be as provocative as possible.
Under them were the concubines, and under them, various classes of
slaves who existed solely to please men with their bodies. Other than
the wife, all classes of women were officially slaves (Gamble 324-7).

But the basic ideology of woman created by the Athenian male is the
mental construct that kept the women in subjection. Roger Just, in his
chapter “Attributes of Woman,” presents the central ideological
understanding of the sexes in Athens. The gendered differences in
Athens were, naturally, understood in couplets: The male is strong,
the female is weak, and so on. The basic couplets were
just/vindictive, rational/irrational, logical/illogical,
quiet/talkative, brave/cowardly, ascetic/gluttonous. These couplets
sought to justify the subjugation of women in Athens (Just 162-3).

The basic idea behind these couplets is that the woman was seen as a
being (not an individual) who could not control her appetite.
Therefore, the purpose of seclusion was to protect women not so much
from other men, but from themselves and temptation. Since women
can’t shut up, as the Athenians apparently believed, their social
engagements needed to be curtailed. Since they can’t stop drinking,
they needed to be kept from wine. Even the social life of the home was
off-limits to women, as they were not permitted to entertain during
social functions at their own home (Savage 30). Women were not
rational, or so the Athenians believed and, hence, had no control over
their own appetite. Therefore they could not be permitted a social
role, nor could they engage in political discussion.

One question that does not arise in the basic literature is the
question of military service. One might hold that since the political
discussion was often over warfare (since Athens was constantly at war)
and women did not serve in the army, then having them make decisions
about wars in which they will not fight is unjust. This does alter the
picture a bit: The basic Athenian idea was that the assembly of all
males should decide on all peace and war. Since those making the
decisions would be those who do the fighting, the assembly was
eminently just. But since women are not militaristic, they have no
right to take part in the assembly and, hence, cannot judge on
questions of peace and war. Hence, it might not be the inherent
“irrationality” of women that Just thinks is at the center of her
political exclusion, but the issues of military readiness, which even
the Spartans did not extend to women.

Bibliography:

Cartledge, Paul, _Sparta and Lakonia_, Routledge, 2002.

Gamble, Eliza, _The Sexes in Science and History_, Putnam, 1916.

Just, Roger, _Women in Athenian Law and Life_, Routledge, 1991.

Pomeroy, Sarah, _Spartan Women, _Oxford University Press, 2002.

Powell, Anton, _The Greek World_, Routledge, 1997.

Rotnoff, Susan, _Women in the Athenian Agora_, ASCSA, 2006 (cf.
9-12).

Savage, Charles, _The Athenian Family, _Doctoral Dissertation,
Published by John Hopkins University Press, 1907.

Sydney, Lady Morgan, _Woman and Her Master_, Oxford Univ. Press,
1840.

 

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