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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