Women in Classical Greece: The Life of Athenian Women during the Classical Period.

Winding the skein made in c. 1878 by Frederic Leighton. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

When one thinks about ancient Greece, especially during the Classical period (c. 480-323 BCE), what immediately comes to mind are the monumental sculptures and grand architecture made by the ancient Greeks. We often find ourselves utterly in awe of their skills and astonishing accomplishments in art and architecture. Their legacy still lives on today, and ancient Greece, or Athens to be more concise, can often be recognized as the birthplace of the western world, the place where democracy was founded, where scientific and philosophical observations and discoveries were made, and where curiosity and thirst for knowledge created the foundation of so many things we believe today. Without a doubt, the cultural heritage of the western world has been heavily influenced and shaped by the ancient Greeks’ accomplishments and discoveries, especially concerning art and architecture. Thus, perhaps it is not surprising that our immediate notion of ancient Greece can often be seen as rather utopic. One might easily believe that ancient Greece was this utopic place where legacies were created, heroic battles were fought and won by legendary figures, consisting of unbiased societies where people lived in democracy and harmony, with equal rights and opportunities. However, without diminishing the Greek legacy, the ancient society during the Classical period was nothing of the sort.

Before going any further, it is important to note that most of the evidence and knowledge on ancient Greek society derives from Athens. Therefore, unless specified otherwise, when giving an account of ancient Greek society, one means Athens and the Athenian citizens.

The School of Athens made in 1509-1511 by Raphael. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Unlike our modern idea of a democratic society, the ancient Greeks did not view people as equals. Instead, they lived in a class-based patriarchal society consisting of free-born male citizens (aristocrats, the middle class, and farmers), laborers, women and children, slaves, and foreigners. Citizenship was reserved for free-born men, but with it came the right to vote, own property, and participate in politics. Therefore, only free-born male citizens over the age of eighteen had full legal status, and thus, the democratic society did not serve all its people equally. In Athens, very few could claim citizenship. Not only did those eligible have to have Athenian fathers, but after 451/450 BCE, the laws demanded that they also have Athenian-born mothers.

Women, however, had little to no rights, regardless of their family’s social status. Unable to become citizens, women could not vote or participate in politics, they were barred from public speaking or conducting any legal procedures, and they were not allowed to legally own and manage property or land. In fact, without going into too much detail, women could receive an inheritance but could not dispose of it as they pleased. It had to be managed by their legal guardian, their kyrios.

For their entire lives, women had to live under the guardianship of their kyrios, which was their father or any other male relative. Once a woman married, her husband took over her guardianship, and in the event of her husband's death or divorce, her guardianship was returned to her paternal male next of kin, it could even be her adult son, if she had one. Thus, independence and autonomy did not exist for Athenian women, nor was their consent required. Women were married off at a young age, between the age of fourteen and eighteen, with their marriage being arranged by their kyrios to a much older man who was usually at least thirty years old. No consent was needed. For free-born women, their fate had already been sealed at conception. They were to become wives and have children, preferably sons. Their main purpose was to manage the household, the oikos, and live a secluded life. A woman’s opinion was completely irrelevant. So great was the scarcity of their legal rights, that not even after giving birth to a child were women able to choose to keep their baby. Every child was appointed a kyrios at birth, and it was the child’s kyrios that had the legal right to choose whether the child should be raised or exposed (taken outside and left there). The post-partum mother had no say in it.

Women were viewed as property, especially their bodies. Free-born women were only to have intercourse after marriage and only with their husbands. Adultery was illegal, but not rape. The penalty for rape – for the perpetrator – was only a monetary fine, while in the case of adultery, the woman’s kyrios had the full legal right to kill the seducer. Ultimately, no matter the crime, it was viewed as a violation of the woman’s kyrios, not the woman herself. This was not only a private matter but also a violation against the city-state since any child born from a woman after she had been “spoiled” by another man other than her husband could not claim citizenship and was viewed as illegitimate. The main importance was to keep the family’s honor and conserve the bloodline’s legitimacy. The woman’s husband had to divorce her, and the woman became an outcast in society.

Hyria Hermonax Rhodes. Image: Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Jebulon, 14 April 2011.

Women were viewed as the inferior and weaker sex in every conceivable manner. Based on evidence from literature, sculptures, and vase paintings, there seems to have been a direct correlation between how women and their bodies were perceived by the patriarchy and what their social status was, what the ancient Greeks believed about female anatomy, and even how women were represented in art. Male superiority needed to be enforced, especially to keep women in their place and guide them towards their ideal roles as females. Not only were women’s lives controlled by the misogynistic patriarchs, but not even their names were to be mentioned in public.

Based on the information mentioned above on women’s rights in Classical Athens, recent events about women’s rights and their autonomy over their bodies seem even more important than ever before. The idea of men telling women what to do and taking away their choice is horrifying but, unfortunately, not something new. The frightening and terrible reality of the possibility that women’s future might be moving towards anything close to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale makes one wonder whether women were better off in Classical Athens than in Gilead.

Modern political graffiti. Image: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Cybularny.

Unlike the ideology of those that today are against abortions – i.e the pro-life movement – in Classical Athens, it was not a matter of the sanctity of life itself, the killing of innocent life (as they believe), or the fetus’s right to live. Abortions were considered dangerous and life-threatening to the woman herself, but they were a private matter and there does not seem to have been a penalty for a woman who had one. The Hippocratic oath did condemn it, but evidence shows that women did have abortions and are even mentioned in the Hippocratic corpus.

However, abortions in ancient Greece were not viewed in the same way as those that are pro-life. Abortions meant taking away kyrios’s right to choose and potentially denying him a legitimate male heir, but they were not illegal, and it had nothing to do with the sanctity of life, because after all, if a kyrios so chose, he could expose the baby after it was born.