Transcript Athenian Women 1 Power Point

Athenian Women
Daughters of Demeter
Polarities
Limit---Unlimited
One --- Plurality
Right --- Left
Male --- Female
Straight --- Crooked
Light --- Darkness
Polarities are a way of
understanding a complete
phenomenon (e.g. humanity) in
light of its naturally opposing
elements (e.g. men and women)
Good --- Evil
Warm --- Cold
Hard --- Soft
“Daughters of Demeter” by Marilyn Katz
Genesis and Generation
Hesiod’s 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”
Kyrios: guardian
Epikleros: heiress
In the polis, human society is
characterized by male control over
females.
Heroes and Heroines
Homer: an ideal marriagerelationship is shown as a “union of
complementaries” (Hector and
Andromache, Odysseus and
Penelope)
“Man’s job is in the fields,
the agora, the affairs of
the city; women’s work is
spinning wool, baking
bread, keeping house.”
“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.”
Women’s Virtues
No man is allowed to sell a
daughter or a sister, unless he
finds that she is no longer a
virgin.
(Solon)
Hetaira: “companion,” a
high-quality prostitute
“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)
A hetaira at work
The Ludovisi throne contrasts the modest wife and the very
available hetaira in a monument to Aphrodite (c. 460)
Women’s Virtues
“It is better for a woman
to remain within than to
wander about.”
(Xenophon)
Oikos: household
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)
Women’s 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: Selfcontrolled, good, and industrious,
possessing every virtue.
(Funeral epigram)
Women’s 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
Everyday Life
Getting water
Courtyard structure of houses
Prevalence of female domestic
slaves
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.
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
Everyday Life
Everyday Life
•Andron (men’s room) =
dining room
•Women upstairs but using
courtyard
•Shifting domestic usage
A nice, upper
class home with
separate men’s and
women’s quarters
Everyday Life
Everyday Life
When we are young and
in our father’s house, I
think we live the
sweetest life of all of
humankind … Now
outside my father’s
house I am nothing.
(Sophocles [Procne])
Everyday Life
Young women:
•Assisting with household
tasks
•Education in singing and
dancing
•Full of dangerous sexuality –
dangerous to themselves and
others
Everyday Life
•Child care central
•Pregnant women seldom if
ever depicted
Where we can tell the gender
of babies shown in Greek
art, they are almost always
male
Women’s role was to produce
citizen children
But citizenship was
important for women too in
Athens
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.”
finis