One of the things my Greek class is reading
this semester are speeches by Lysias
The first one we translated was about a murder
trial about a man who supposedly killed another
person
Whom he caught sleeping with his wife
In Classical Athens there were certain offenses
for which homicide was justifiable and allowed
Catching a woman of your family committing
adultery was one of those times
But the reason that this speech exists is
because there must have been some doubt
As to whether the guy actually caught his
wife in the act of committing adultery
Or whether it was all an elaborate ruse in
order to have some sort of reason to murder
this other guy
We don't know what the outcome was, we don't
know what the witnesses said
All we have is his defense and explanation
of his actions
If you're wondering why only the man was allowed
to be killed in these circumstances and not
the woman
And I've had people ask me this
That's because men were allowed to kill the
women of their family pretty much whenever
they wanted
Because they were seen as property
But you needed a really good excuse, like
adultery, in order to off another male citizen
And that brings me to the crux of what I wanted
to talk about today
The concept of sexual assault in the ancient
world
Though the speech does not address these themes
too explicitly, it alludes to them
And is used as an example in modern scholarship
when dealing with the issue
Susan Cole wrote an excellent article about
this, I'll put the information in the doobledoo
And I want to summarize some of her points,
and then add my own thoughts
Cole talks about language use to discuss assault,
and this really captivated me
Because the language we use to create a discourse
on such topics is really telling
As to how we as a society feel about the issue
There was no word for rape in Ancient Greece,
but the words they used to describe this act
are quite interesting
"Moikunein" means to commit adultery, and
this was used regardless of whether or not
the woman was married
"Biazmoi" means voilence
"Biadzesthai" means force
"Damadzesthai" means to subdue
"Aiskunein" means to shame
And "harpadzein" means to seize
What really struck me about this vocabulary
is how incredibly similar, and in some cases
identical
It is, to words we use today to describe sexual
assault
And what do all of these words have in common?
They are all combative and violent against
women, the object of their actions
As I was reading through this article, thinking
about the vocabulary, and learning more
About the ways assault was dealt with legally,
if at all
I became more and more aware of the similarities
to how assault is dealt with and discussed
today
We in Western society so often claim these
classical civilizations as the roots and foundations
of our own
But it is pretty depressing how little we've
progressed in the 2,000+ years since this
speech was written
We are still blaming women, and deeming it
shameful for them, if they are raped
And that is not ok.
If you want to learn more about this, I'll
link some information in the doobledoo
I hope you have a great day, and maybe we
can work together on changing the discussion
around sexual assault
Because it's kind of the worst
