Comparing Women In Athens And Sparta

“Where the differed was that while the Spartans had militaristic values, Athenians were democratic,”states Mr.Duckworth in “Athens and sparta”.

Sparta was a very unique society which could be defined as Utopian Militaristic State. Spartan boys all were devoted their entire lives from an early age to the Spartan army. This heavily militarist society was also unique in terms of women's position in society. They had much more rights and freedoms than other Greek women, but in terms of family life they were not so lucky. Women were living separately from spouse during their whole lives. Their husbands were only coming to home at night, they were secretly removed after a short time. And also they were separated from their sons for military training. Women had to be strong in family and social life. Spartan lawgivers wanted girls to receive a good education in order to prepare them to their womanhood duties.

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

Spartan men weren’t allowed to have more than one wife so they would, “choose a woman who was the mother of a fine family and of high birth, and if he obtained her husband's consent, to make her the mother of his children.” (Xenophon p. 1). Another practice that was both a positive and negative was women being able to hold property of their own. There was a catch being that this could only happen during times of war (Text book). This was a doubled edged sword because as cool as it is that women were able to hold land at all, I would think that it would cause more strife between husband and wife if he were to take that right back once he returned, why even give it in the first

But in the Spartan society, the woman had a dignified position just because they were the mother of the famous Sparta worriers. The Athenian women were also not allowed for education or to educate themselves. Men were the only ones allowed in the schools. They also wore clothing that completely covered their bodies and was not able to walk where they

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.

The lives of women in Ancient Greece were often subject to control by men. Women were considered in many ways inferior to men, and they were never granted equal political rights. Not all Greek city-states treated women in the same manner, however. The greatest contrast in treatment of women was between Athens and Sparta. The Athenian view of women was that they were best kept out of the public sphere entirely, with few personal liberties or economic rights, and no direct involvement with politics.

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 treatment between women in Athens and women in Sparta was the difference between night and day. Women were treated completely different in Athens compared to Sparta. Neither of the society’s women were seen as overpowered or superior to men, but in one culture, women live a better life than the other. Women from Spartan civilizations were treated equal to men during their youth. Women from Sparta ran the civilizations due to the fact of the men serving in the military from the age of seven to the age of sixty-five.

In the ancient Greek world, Spartan women had the most rights and power of all the women during this time. These women were allowed education, becoming a wife was important, they were also depended on to produce strong and healthy offspring, and they were independent. Spartan women were superior compared to any other women of ancient Greece. Women played a huge role in society. To begin, young girls in Sparta had the freedom to mature on their own while growing up.

In today’s society women are able to hold any position equal to that of a man. During ancient times, women were not given such opportunity. In basically all ancient civilizations, women did not have a role in society. This is especially true in ancient Greece. History has said that Athens is the place of freedom and democracy while Sparta is a restricted society. Though this might be true, that was not the case for women. Women in Homeric Greece and Sparta actually had more respect and freedom than those in Athens.

The Spartan social roles and government were very exquisite, proper and always knows their positions. At the bottom of the scale there where the Helots. The helots had so little to no rights that it was okay if their owners killed them. The helots were usually obtained or captured by the Spartans when out in battle. Helots were used as property and served their masters. Except they were not following what the man said. They followed what the women said due to the fact that men were fighting in wars and boys were training. Citizen males over the age of thirty were allowed to vote. The women were allowed to become citizen; as well they just did not receive the same rights as the men might have. Though the women in Sparta did have the most freedoms. They were allowed to own their own properties, they did not need permission to go out of the house; all because of the respect the Spartans had for mothers, also because the men were always in war. Lastly there was the Gerontes. They were the citizen males who were rich and over the age of sixty who had the most rights. One could only become a Genonte after surviving war. So, women could not become a Genonte due to the fact that they were not allowed to join the military and because they were not male.

As briefly touched on in the opening paragraph when looking at women in society one must central there focus on a specific group of people of which to examine. The Spartan and Athenian women are the two groups of which the focus is on and its now time take a look at what life was like for them. The first way to do that is discussing the rights that Sparta and Athens women had in comparison to male counterparts and then look at how women felt about what rights that they did or did not have. There are plenty of rights that one could look at but the most important rights to any person are voting. Now voting is an issue that is larger then just a person right to express themselves as an active and concerned citizen but rather one that looks at

Despite Athenian and Spartans being associates of the same influential nation, these two states or ‘Peloi’ and denominations of people in Ancient Greece in (400BC) were substantially different. The women in their own distinct societies endured several problematic issues and experienced inequity, demoralisation and condemnation. The notion of women and their purpose was typically conjectured by men in society, specifically Aristotle who claimed that women brought ‘disorder, were evil, were utterly useless and caused more confusion than the enemy’ . However despite misogynistic, biased and loathsome perspectives of women, both Athenian and Spartan women have all played exceedingly significant roles and contributed substantially to the prosperity of Ancient Greek society in their own inimitable ways.