Lindstrom 1 Nathan W.

Lindstrom Professor Brych English 1A 2012-02-24

Gender Inequality in Classical Athens

ATHENS

IS A CITY

of some 160 square miles in Southeast Greece, overlooking the

Agean Sea. It has existed for over three thousand years, and in the fourth century B. C. it was home to approximately three million people. The vast majority of classical civilizations artistic and intellectual ideas had their origins in Athens. In fact, a surprising number of traditions and conventions began in Athens that have survived the intervening centuries, leading to Athens being considered the birthplace of Western civilization. While many of the ideas inherited from Athens are valuable, such as the early concepts of democracy which so greatly influenced our own countrys founding fathers, so too have other egregious ideas also survived the centuries. Women in classical Athens were far from being treated as the equal of men; and sadly many of the misogynistic practices of the day still exist in one form or another. Numerous are the subtle and not-so-subtle discriminatory practices against women in the past century that have their roots in classical Athens. Is the western tradition inextricably tied to misogyny, or can the freedom, intellectual revolution, and high art first fostered in Athens be applied to man

Lindstrom 2 and woman alike, while deftly excising the modern remnants of an inequitable past? The freedom that a man enjoyed in Athens was derived solely from his status as a citizen of the Greek city-state. A non-citizen could not own

property, make use of government-provided facilities, hold power over another person, or serve in the government of Athens. He would be, in brief, little more than a slave. A citizen, on the other hand, enjoyed all the rights and freedoms accorded him by what was the greatest civilization in the known world. In Recherches sur les structures sociales dans lantiquit

classique, professor Jol Le Gall asserts that women were not technically citizens, and were thus dependent upon their fathers or husbands for social standing within Athens (25). In fact, not only were they not citizens, women were considered minors in the eyes of the law, regardless of their age or marital status. A. R. W. Harrison observes that whatever her status as

daughter, sister, wife or mother, and whatever her age or social class, [she] is in law a perpetual minor: that is, throughout her life she was in the legal control of a male (Law of Athens 30). While growing up and prior to

marriage, an Athenian woman was under the kyrieia1 of her father, fathers father, or her brothers by the same biological father. Married or not, a woman in Athens had no legal right to own or dispose of property, observes professor John Gould, Professor Emeritus of Greek History at the University of Bristol (44). And in marriage, her husband

continued to hold all the cards: The general rule, says Gould, is that a 1 Roughly translated, household affinity and authority.

Lindstrom 3 woman has in law no standing in any question relating to her marriage (44). This practice was continued under English common law, upon which property laws in the United States are based, and which forbade a married woman from owning property. All of a womans rights were subsumed under those of her husband upon marriage, and her husband had unilateral authority to dispose of her property just as in Athens thousands of years before. It was not until 1852 in New Jersey that this practice was stopped by the passage of the 1852 Married Womens Property Act. It contained the revolutionary

sentiment that the real and personal property of any female who may hereafter marry...shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband...and shall continue as her sole and separate property (Married Womens Property Act). This was the first time since Athens that the western tradition of

property belonging only to men was overturned, and was a key turning point in the womens suffrage movement. In classical Athens, only a citizen could participate in matters of government, and to be a citizen according to Pericles citizenship law in 451 B. C., one had to own property. Thus a woman, who could not own property under Athenian law, was thereby deprived of participating in the government of Athens. While classical Athens did not use a system of government where voting was employed as we use it today, the concept of the right to vote being tied to property ownership was alive and well in the United States until 1920 with the passage of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. Until that time, many states placed only one restriction upon a

Lindstrom 4 persons ability to vote: they had to own at least $250 worth of property, as was the case in New Jersey. This served to subtly exclude women (and racial minorities who likewise could not own property). The long-standing western tradition of male-only suffrage, with its origins in classical Athens, came to a belated end in the United States with the words The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex (Nineteenth Amendment). Unlike property ownership and suffrage, two aspects of marriage that have been rectified since their Athenian heritage, there remain other discriminatory parts of the western tradition that remain in effect today. In the literature extant from classical Athens, women are almost never mentioned by name. Instead, says professor Gould, the names of women who have a respected place in the community are suppressed and they are referred to by complex periphrases which stress their status-dependence upon male kinsmen. Respect requires that they be treated, almost, as part of the property of father or husband (45). Many modern-day practices

emanate from this aspect of Athenian culture, several of which deserve a closer examination. Just as Electra, the central character in the selfsame named tragedy by Euripides refers to her own mother as Tyndareus daughter or King Agamemnons wife so too it is common to use only the mans name when formally addressing his wife (397-399). In the 2004 edition of Emily Posts Etiquette, the preeminent guide to polite manners and acceptable behavior,

Lindstrom 5 the proper form for naming the parents in a wedding invitation is given as an example with Mr. and Mrs. Allen Perry (564). Furthermore, even if the

father is deceased, the widow still remains unnamed: Mrs. Benjamin Carelli and the late Mr. Carelli (565). While some inroads have been made

against this practice with the invention of Ms in the 1950s to replace the ubiquitous Mrs. and Miss, the practice of referring to a woman by her husbands name remains largely unabated. Worse yet, when a woman marries, she is expected to take her husbands surname and replace her own with it. We may compare these facts both with our own system of surname changing by women upon marriage and with modern Greek usage, argues professor Gould, whereby a womans surname is that of her father, then of her husband, in the

possessive: so and sos Miss or Mrs. (45). In classical Athens, a woman was without exception known by her father or husbands name; and while in the present day no social taboos are violated when a woman is addressed by her first name, using a married womans maiden name is seen as a mistake, if not an outright faux pas. One fairly recent attempt at rectifying this

situation is to hyphenate the man and womans surnames together at marriage, but unfortunately, this solution is slowly being discarded. People dont do hyphenation because others ignore it, complains Laurie Scheuble, senior sociology lecturer at Penn State University. People will just choose one of your last names (Hyphenated Names). Even some people who have started out their marriages with hyphenated names are giving up on the

Lindstrom 6 idea: The reason I hyphenated to begin with was because I knew our children would be named Jordan, one mother of three says. But because of difficulty with web sites and computerized paperwork that demands that the user select only a single surname, she gave up on the idea, saying that Sherwin-Jordan just didnt fit in our computerized society (Hyphenated Names). Given the ease with which computers facilitate rapid change, it is unfortunate that they seem to be standing in the way of progress on this front. Or is it not the fault of the systems, but rather, the designers of those systems who consciously (or unconsciously) wish to continue a tradition concerning women that began so long ago in classical Athens? People often resist change, preferring instead to cling to their traditions. Perhaps women should be content that they can own property, that they can vote, and that they have the option of referring to themselves as Ms. Granted, they are far from being treated as the equals of men, but traditions are important in any society, and it can certainly be argued that the traditional womans role in life has a long and prestigious history that stretches back to the dawn of recorded civilization. On the whole, women have it pretty good, and what is a little freedom in exchange for social stability and societal respectability? Any tradition that calls for the subjugation of one party to another is a poor tradition, and poor traditions should not be honored. Forcing a group of people to work in horrendous conditions without pay due to a higher level of melanin than their owners can also lay claim to being a time-honored

Lindstrom 7 tradition; but that in no way makes slavery any less immoral and reprehensible. So then why might it even be considered in the realm of

possibility to treat a person as inferior based on their sex? Where freedom and equality are at stake, traditions be damned. Admittedly, it is sometimes difficult to tell where a tradition is influencing daily life, or where one even exists; and if one is to break with tradition, one must first know of the tradition that is to be discarded. It is here that history demonstrates a particular value by illuminating the sources of day-to-day activity and belief and thereby showing us traditions that must be discarded if ever we are to truly consider ourselves enlightened and equal people.

Lindstrom 8 Bibliography

THE

FOLLOWING ARE KEY

works that the author consulted during the course of While not all of them were used for

researching and writing this essay.

quotes or citations, each served in its own way to elucidate the subject. They will surely reward the reader who is interested in learning more of Athens influence on modern-day western culture.

Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (London 1971). Euripides, Sophocles et al, The Complete Greek Tragedies (Chicago 1992). Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford 1937). Harrison, Law of Athens (Oxford 1968). Le Gall, Recherches sur les structures sociales dans lantiquit classique (Paris 1970).

Pickard-Cambridge, Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford 1968). Plato, The Republic (Indianapolis 1992). Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (London 1976). Tacitus, The Histories (Cambridge 1931).

Lindstrom 9 Works Cited

Euripides. Electra. The Complete Greek Tragedies. Trans. Emily Vermeule. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1992. Gould, John. Women in Classical Athens. Journal of Hellenic Studies. Volume 100 (1980): 38-59. Harrison, A. R. W. The Law of Athens. London: Oxford UP, 1968. Le Gall, Jol. classique. ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970. Married Womens Property Act. New Jersey 407 (1852). Acts of the Seventy-Sixth Legislature of the State of New Jersey. Rutgers University. 2 December 2007. Nineteenth Amendment. FindLaw. 2 December 2007. Post, Peggy. Emily Posts Etiquette. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Jayson, Sharon. Hyphenated Names Less-and-less Used. USA Today Online. 30 May 2005. 2 December 2007. <http://www.usatoday.com/life/2005-05-30-name-change_x.htm> U.S. Constitution (1920). Cases & Codes. Recherches sur les structures sociales dans lantiquit Law, Custom and Myth: Aspects of the Social Position of

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