Life in Ancient Greece was not a lot of fun
for women.
But if you lived in the right city-state or
wound up with the right job, things could
be a little bit easier.
From lady Olympics to religious rites, here’s
what life was like for women in Ancient Greece.
Name something, literally anything, and Ancient
Greek men probably banned women from doing
it, watching it, or participating in it.
Working? Nuh-uh.
Politics? No way.
Even just walking around the market?
Totally frowned upon.
This included the Olympic Games.
But women did actually have their own version
of the Olympic Games called the Heraean Games.
Held every four years, the games consisted
of 16 women from various city-states competing
in footraces.
The winners received olive branch headdresses,
plus part of a dead cow, and statues with
their names carved on them were dedicated
to them.
Spartan women apparently won a lot of the
time, as you'd expect.
Some historians don't believe the Heraean
Games actually existed, since there's very
little evidence for them.
But others say this is just a sign of the
insignificance of women to the Ancient Greeks.
If you were a woman in Ancient Greece, there
was basically only one way to get equality:
find religion.
Goddesses needed priestesses, and priestesses
were powerful.
As Ancient History Encyclopedia puts it,
"The priestesses of Greek religion enjoyed
a great many perks that other Greek women
did not."
Those perks included things like money, property,
bodyguards, no taxation, and even being consulted
on political matters.
Plus, they could sometimes actually marry
who they liked!
Essentially, they were treated as equals to
men, which is why the job was so hard to get:
the position of priestess had to be inherited
or purchased, or occasionally won by election.
Clearly, religion provided women a respite
from the cruelties of men.
And so did alcohol.
Though it was considered unseemly for women
to drink, many Greek playwrights commented
on just how much drinking most women did,
to the point that it became something of a
cliche.
Heck, even though women weren't supposed to
have jobs at all, some women actually became
bartenders and ran their own taverns.
Besides drinking, there was also feasting,
which was a major part of the many mysterious
ladies-only religious festivals that regularly
took place in Ancient Greece.
With men banned from attending these gatherings,
fertility rites like the three-day Thesmophoria
festival apparently involved a lot of jokes, trash talk, and food.
While prostitution was rife throughout Ancient
Greece, Athens became particularly famous
for its brothels, as men turned them into
a key part of how their society functioned.
Since many men waited until they were in their
30's to marry, they had to get their jollies
somewhere else, essentially forcing women
into one of two roles: virginal young brides,
or prostitutes.
Weirdly enough, though, prostitutes often
had the better deal.
Besides priestesses, prostitutes were pretty
much the only women who could live independently
and have financial security, as they earned
a good wage.
In fact, many prostitutes began as slaves
and earned enough money to buy their own freedom.
And there was also a higher class of prostitute
called the "hetaerae" who were well educated
escorts to the wealthiest men of the land.
Life for women in most Ancient Greek city-states,
particularly Athens, was extremely difficult.
But there was one place they could have rights,
a degree of freedom, and were even held in
esteem.
“This. Is. Sparta!”
Living in Sparta was the best it ever got
for Ancient Greek women.
Ancient History Encyclopedia says girls were
given an education because the Spartan men
were away fighting so often, and they knew
the women they left behind needed to be able
to run things.
And unlike their Athenian counterparts, Spartan
girls weren't forced into marriage at an early
age.
Instead, it was customary to wait until they
were old enough to enjoy relations with their
husbands.
Women could also own land, and they were allowed
to fraternize with men in public, where they
were able to hold their own in conversations.
In fact, Spartan women were known for being
outspoken and funny.
The rest of Ancient Greece thought their neighbor
was nuts for treating women somewhat like
humans - so naturally, when Sparta fell into
decline, it was blamed partly on all the freedom
women had there.
So what was it like for women in Athens?
Outside of Sparta, women in Ancient Greece
had almost no rights.
At every stage of their lives, they were completely
under the control of their father or husband,
and had to be accompanied every time they
left the house.
They also couldn't own property, and were
intentionally kept as uneducated as possible.
Their role?
To have babies, particularly sons, and to
run the house, which meant cleaning, cooking,
and - in wealthier homes - overseeing the
slaves who did the cleaning and cooking.
And for those slaves, things were even worse:
beyond the backbreaking labor, there was the
total lack of autonomy over their own bodies.
How bad was it for women?
Girls around menstrual age were so afraid
of being married off into servitude to a strange
older man that they frequently took their
own life instead.
And those who didn't were so anxious and stressed
out that there was even a term for their suffering:
"illness of the maidens," which was typically
accompanied by symptoms like pain, shivering,
fever, hallucinations, vomiting, paranoia
and the feeling of being suffocated.
The cure, according to male doctors of the
time?
Marriage and a quick pregnancy, of course,
because nothing calms terror like making those
fears come true.
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