Athenian Women

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Athenian Women

• Daughters of Demeter

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Polarities
Limit---Unlimited One --- Plurality Right ---
Left Male --- Female Straight --- Crooked Light
--- Darkness Good --- Evil Warm --- Cold Hard ---
Soft
Polarities are a way of understanding a complete
phenomenon (e.g. humanity) in light of its
naturally opposing elements (e.g. men and women)
Daughters of Demeter by Marilyn Katz
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Genesis and Generation
Hesiods Theogony from Chaos (characterized by
feminine generation and influence), divine order
is established by patriarchal authority
(Zeus). Athena represents the magnitude and
beneficence of female potency when submitted to
benign male control In the polis, human society
is characterized by male control over females.
Kyrios guardian Epikleros heiress
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Heroes and Heroines
Homer an ideal marriage-relationship is shown as
a union of complementaries (Hector and
Andromache, Odysseus and Penelope) Women are
preoccupied with spinning and weaving, with
safeguarding the household stores, and with the
care of their children they are responsible for
petitioning the gods in time of war and for
mourning over the dead, and they are the victims
consigned to slavery when the city falls.
Mans job is in the fields, the agora, the
affairs of the city womens work is spinning
wool, baking bread, keeping house.
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Womens Virtues
No man is allowed to sell a daughter or a sister,
unless he finds that she is no longer a
virgin. (Solon)
We have hetairai for pleasure, concubines for
the daily care of the body, but wives to bear us
legitimate children and to be the trusted
guardians of our household (Demosthenes)
Hetaira companion, a high-quality prostitute
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A hetaira at work
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The Ludovisi throne contrasts the modest wife and
the very available hetaira in a monument to
Aphrodite (c. 460)
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Womens Virtues
It is better for a woman to remain within than
to wander about. (Xenophon)
A woman who travels outside the house must be of
such an age that onlookers might ask, not whose
wife she is, but whose mother. (Hyperides)
Oikos household
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Womens Virtues
Your reputation is glorious if you do not prove
inferior to your own nature and if there is the
least possible talk about you among men, whether
in praise or blame. (Thucydides Pericles)
The memory of your virtue, Theophile, will never
die Self-controlled, good, and industrious,
possessing every virtue. (Funeral epigram)
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Womens Virtues
No finer, greater gift in the world than
that...when man and woman possess their home,
two minds,two hearts that work as one. Despair
to their enemies,joy to all their friends. Their
own best claim to glory. Homer, Odyssey
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Everyday Life
Getting water Courtyard structure of
houses Prevalence of female domestic slaves Work
for pay as something to be avoided if possible a
sign of poverty and / or immodesty Poor women and
slaves in the agora, wealthier women at
home Evidence of women (mostly not in Athens) in
professions
Farewell, tomb of Melitte a good woman lies
here. You loved your husband Onesimus he loved
you in return. You were the best, and so he
laments your death, for you were a good
woman. And to you farewell, dearest of men love
my children.
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Everyday Life
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Everyday Life

• Andron (mens room) dining room
• Women upstairs but using courtyard
• Shifting domestic usage

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A nice, upper class home with
separate mens and womens quarters
Everyday Life
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Everyday Life
When we are young and in our fathers house, I
think we live the sweetest life of all of
humankind Now outside my fathers house I am
nothing. (Sophocles Procne)
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Everyday Life

• Young women
• Assisting with household tasks
• Education in singing and dancing
• Full of dangerous sexuality dangerous to
  themselves and others

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Everyday Life

• Child care central
• Pregnant women seldom if ever depicted

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Where we can tell the gender of babies shown in
Greek art, they are almost always male Womens
role was to produce citizen children But
citizenship was important for women too in Athens
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Everyday Life
A woman offers her baby to its father Men had the
ability to accept or refuse children born to
their household Infant exposure of unwanted
children If it is male, keep it, if it is
female, expose it.
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finis