Comparing Women In Athens And Sparta

As a woman I already forfeit the right of citizenship or political rights by birth in either polis, therefore I must choose which one benefits me the most by my gender. I think Sparta is the best option for women, and the lifestyle to some degree suits my personality. Growing up I was always a highly expressive and opinionated young girl who loved to play sports, and Sparta gave their girls that opportunity unlike Athens. If I survived the state’s physical health examinations as an infant I could be sure to receive a public education that included learning some combat training, and sports such as wrestling and gymnastics which was certainly frowned upon

In no other city-state did women enjoy the same freedom and status as Spartan women. As a military-driven society, the Spartans realized that “regardless of gender all Spartiates had an obligation to serve the militaristic end of Sparta.” With this focus in mind, women were allowed more freedom, rights, and independence. Spartan women were

When comparing power levels and women’s rights, Sparta was a leader in its time. Athens and Sparta, though both Greek city-states were different in the way they operated. More specifically, Sparta was different in the way that they treated their women. Athenian woman were treated quite appallingly compared to the standards of today’s women. The stem of this difference seems to lie in how these two city-states were governed. Sparta, known for its’ militaristic ways, was an oligarchy and Athens, known for its’ philosophers and thinkers, was a democracy. Sparta’s oligarchy was ruled by a counsel of 5 men, on being a lawmaker or giver. The lawgiver’s name was Lycurgus. Lycurgus was

If you built a time machine and I had to choose between being sent to Sparta and the Salian Franks, it would be a tough call, but in the end I would have to choose to live in Sparta. There are many reasons behind that choice, but most of them tie back to me being a female and how each society treated their women, both Spartan and Salian cultures treated women better then Roman society that being said Spartan culture, according to Xenophon women were treated very similarly to the men in many ways.

Athens and Sparta although very different, in every way, still shared some common aspects and laws when it came to women. Although we have seen that Spartan women had some form of independence when it came to politics, property and education, they were still controlled when it came to marriage and child bearing. We can see a similarity with this, in the Athenian women who had no control whatsoever, over who they married and to whom they must bear children to. In Athens, the female would be given by her male kyrios (most likely her father, sometimes her brother, at this stage of her life) in marriage with a man. And even once she was married away, she still had no say in what happened next. Sometimes her father could force her to leave her husband, hence dissolving the marriage.

In ancient Greece, there was one dominant city-state, or Polis as the ancient Greeks called it, and this was Athens. It was a beautiful society that enjoyed art and literature very much and valued things like wholeness and excellence. However, one thing the Athenians did not value was women. They were deemed inferior by men, and treated more as a decoration rather than a human being.

Most of the information we have today about the women of ancient Greece was wrote by well educated, higher class men that were considered the experts of the time but naturally did not know what it was like to live as a woman. These men depicted the women as emotional, less rational, impulsive, and weaker than men, lacking knowledge of the world and dependent solely on them. But that idea did not hold true for the Greece city/state of Sparta.

During the early era of the Golden age and late of Classical age of Ancient Greece, from the years 520-321 BC womens roles were significantly different between the two mainly Greek city state Athens and Sparta. These roles that the women presented had huge differences in a way women were portrayed in their societies. Both cities were very different in many ways, the females were raised very differently, and had different duties they had to perform. For example if you commit adultery by Spartan women it was considered tolerated and encourage in their society on the other hand adultery in Athenian women was not even considered and substantially have very few consequences. Unlike the Spartan women Athenian women were treated as unimportant citizens in a lot of ways. They were classified into three different classes. The lowest class which were considered as slaves, the citizen class, and the Hetaerae which were considered as prostitutes, but they were allowed to have education and go to marketplaces, and have rights. With Spartan women they were taught to read and write, also were expected to protect themselves and the children since men were barely around. They were definitely different from other Greek cities and were mainly raised to act as warriors because of the responsibility of owning and protecting their homes. These womens had three considerable lifestyle differences how they were raised , How were their marriages, and what responsibilities they had. These will serve

The reason for women running Spartan civilizations was due to the fact of there being no men around to run anything. The reason why women lived good lives is due to no men being present to terminate them of their belongings.

women didn't have to fight in the army, and women still got to be trained. In the

As the social studies textbook says, “Spartan women were raised to be strong and vigorous. They participated in sports....[They] had a good deal of freedom and responsibility...they had greater independence than women in other city states.” When other city states treated women like unequals, Sparta was the one that gave women rights. By giving women the right to participte in sports and get an education, the city-state of Sparta coud ensure that the women could give birth to smart and healthy children.

Most people think of ancient Athens as the city of freedom and democracy, while they think of Sparta as a highly restricted society. The schools teach us that modern democracies are modeled on Athens, while military dictatorships are modeled on Sparta. However, history shows us that women had much more liberty in Sparta than in Athens. In fact, the democracy of Athens was available only to free men who were citizens of Athens. Moreover, to claim citizenship, an Athenian had to prove that both his parents were "astoi." For the father, being "astos" meant that he was an Athenian citizen, but the mother could not be a citizen. Women were never citizens, but only able to transmit the rights of citizenship to their sons (Perry, et al, 1992,

Sparta was definitely more progressive in people equality that the other city-states in Greece. The woman of Sparta had much more rights and opportunities that women in other city-states like Athens. For example, women could own their own land and control their own property and women also wore a special tunic that showed that they had freedom. Women were also free to speak to the husband friends and even remarry to another man if their husband has been gone for too long at war. Unlike in Athens, woman and men were both educated. Women studied something called Mousike, which was a combination of different lessons consisting of music, dance, and poetry. When women got older, the were very skilled with governance,

Women's lives were similar in many parts of ancient Greece, but the Greeks themselves singled out the city state of Sparta as being greatly different. The women of Sparta were granted an equal stake in the success or failure of their state. With their fathers and

In the passage “Athens and Sparta,” Mr. Duckworth states “Where they differed was that while Sparta had militaristic values, Athenians were democratic.” Athens and Sparta were two major city-states in Ancient Greece. Both city-states would have been decent places to live. However, Sparta would have been a better city-state to live in than Athens because Spartan women had more independence that other women in Greece, Sparta had a strong army, and Sparta was selfless.