Women in Ancient Greece
Females Were Perceived as Inferior and Weak in Hellenic Society
Throughout most of Ancient Greek history, the role of women was strictly relegated to the home. Women as a group had no voice in political, military, or civil matters. Historians cite an increase in female rulers – or women wielding exceptional power, during and after the Macedonian period, but did this imply universal changes in the status of Greek women and how they were perceived by men? The overall conclusion must be that women were considered inherently inferior and weaker, a notion adopted by later civilizations and institutions including the Christians.
The Inferior Role of Greek Women
From the earliest days of Greek civilization, women were under the patriarchal authority of males. Segregated into strictly enforced domestic spheres, they passed from the male authority of the father to that of their husband. Not until the enlightened reforms of Solon could women inherit property from the father, and then only if there were no sons.
Because women were perceived as weaker, they had to be protected. Their only status was as wives and mothers, charged with the nurturing and early education of children. Thus, as historian Michael Grant concludes, women “kept life going.” Yet even the female role in conception was limited: it was the male that provided the soul, turning embryonic matter into a living being.
Outlets for Women
As in other ancient societies, women found escape in religion. In Greece, female priestesses served the many temples. The same would be true much later in Rome where the status of women was only slightly more enhanced. In Rome, the most powerful priestesses were the Vestal Virgins. Festivals also offered respite for Greek women, notably the Athenian Thesmophoria, at which no males were permitted.
Christian institutions, inheriting much from Ancient Greece and Rome, saw similar trends in which the only status for women resided in religious convents as nuns, female ascetics, and saints. James I (first Stuart monarch in 1603) was once introduced to an exceptional woman who was highly literate and spoke several languages. His reply, “but can she spin,” is reminiscent of Hector saying to his wife, “please go home and tend to your tasks, the distaff and the loom…”
Women as Sublime yet Weaker Vessels
Greek goddesses like Athena were nothing like the average female in the Greek household, nor were women encouraged to emulate the powerful patron. Goddesses like Athena represented the sublime, women in another supernatural or other-worldly dimension, much like the Virgin Mary in Medieval Catholicism. Athena, like all the gods, was superhuman.
But mythology also taught that through “woman” came “pains and evil,” similar to Eve in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For the Greeks it was Pandora, whose foolishness and misguided inquisitiveness introduced evil into the world. Aristotle wrote that “the female…is a deformed male.”
Historian Sarah Pomeroy quotes the philosopher Bertrand Russell who said, “Aristotle would not have claimed that women had fewer teeth than men if he had allowed his wife to open her mouth.” Plato, on the other hand, gave a more enlightened view of women, stressing equality between the sexes in his Utopian society.
Changes in Female Perception
The waning of Greek civilization produced a number of powerful women, including Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, as well as the female Ptolemies of Egypt. Egypt also exported the cult of Isis, a goddess who did much to enhance the role and status of women in ancient Mediterranean civilizations.
The debate continues, however, as to what extent these exceptions affected real change in the lives of most women. The fact that subsequent civilizations and institutions chose to retain views of women based on inherent weaknesses and inferiority suggests that no real progress was made in increasing the overall status of women in the ancient world.
Sources:
- Michael Grant, A Social History of Greece and Rome (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992)
- Sarah B. Pomeroy and others, Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Women of Athens Enjoyed Few Rights
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