Any study of ancient women must focus on two problems: only male historians and writers speak for them, and those men are focused single-mindedly on the ruling class of Hellas and its dependencies. The “short and simple annals of the poor” have little or no place in historical analysis before the 19th century. References to women must be analyzed to understand, and sometimes discount, the male perspective that produced them. Much is known about the women of upper class Athens and very little about their humbler sisters. Both are encompassed in a society that viewed women almost solely in terms of their sexual and reproductive functions and that allowed them no more personal freedom than many repressive eastern cultures today.

Women in Classical Greece

A necessary perspective on understanding classical female society in the ancient world is evident in studying how the Greeks viewed a woman's place; a perspective that had untold influence on later cultures. And that cultural norm, in many ways, was to treat the women of ancient Greece as children.

"She was not yet fifteen years old when she came to me, and up to that time she had lived in leading-strings, seeing, hearing and saying as little as possible. If when she came she knew no more than how, when given wool, to turn out a cloak, and had seen only how the spinning is given out to the maids, is not that as much as could be expected? For in control of her appetite, Socrates, she had been excellently trained..." Xenophon, On Men and Women,from Oikonomikos, c. 370 BC.

In the sixth-century Athens of Pericles, a strongly male-dominated culture relegated women to a position of essential impotence beyond the bonds of their children and households. Greek women were, legally and figuratively, considered as children all their lives. Societal mores separated male and female activities in every sphere. Women and their children lived in separate quarters in their fathers’ or husband’s house. Literacy was not encouraged for respectable women. A woman’s major - almost sole - function was to produce a legitimate heir; thus she sought marriage above all other goals, usually marrying in her early 'teens, often to much-older men. Her chastity and reputation were paramount. A respectable woman was not expected to escape the confines of her father or husband’s house; the less she was seen or even mentioned by other men, the more her honor. She was not permitted to eat in the company of males except those from her own family (only prostitutes, or hetairai, dined with strange men). Friendship between men (including homosexual friendship) was considered far nobler and more spiritually satisfying than any love a husband might hold for his wife. Socrates could and did dismiss his wife, Xanthippe, from his deathbed, preferring to die with his male companions; the decision was viewed with approval.

All the great Greek playwrights included women in dramatic or comic scenes (although, of course, only male actors could portray them). Only in comedy was a woman's assertiveness considered humorous, like the angry wives in Lysistrata who refuse their husbands sex and child care to force the vote for peace. In tragedies, an assertive woman usually spelled disaster; in a case such as Medea's, a woman's natural jealousy and tempestuous emotional instability resulted in the murder of her own children.

Except for religious ceremonies, women were not permitted to mix with men in public, attend political gatherings or the theater, or vote. An Athenian woman was not allowed to make important social or financial decisions without a male guardian’s consent and had little or no financial independence. Although the Athenian male came of age at 18, an Athenian woman never did; her legal status until her death remained that of a minor child. She was provided little or no formal education other than necessary household wisdom. It was considered inappropriate for a woman to go to market without chaperones. Societal strictures and law firmly enforced the ideal that a woman was inferior to her morally superior husband, required his guidance, and must submit to his wisdom. Aristotle wrote that marriage between men and women is inherently unequal, and that a woman must look to her husband as a beneficiary looks to a benefactor. His influence was wide-ranging. Only lower-class women, who had to work to help sustain the household, escaped some of these strictures.

Yet there were exceptions to the outlines sketched above. Perhaps one of the most famous and influential women in Athens was the extraordinary Aspasia, mistress of the statesman Pericles, friend of Socrates. It is sufficient to say that her reputation for learning, wit, and political influence was allowed partly because she was only a resident alien in Athens (thus free from restrictions on Athenian women) and because she was a hetaira. It is a peculiar fact that Greek prostitutes were permitted infinitely more intellectual freedom than their chaste sisters, free to dine, learn, and argue philosophy with men beyond their other professional accomplishments.

The city-state of Sparta deviated from some of these restrictive conventions but its influence was minor compared to that of Athens and Athens’ influence on its numerous colonies abroad. Although some of the more severe Greek strictures against women relaxed in the Hellenistic period, Greek women remained bound by moral dependency, lack of financial independence and lack of education throughout antiquity. Interestingly, many traditions of the Greeks were absorbed in the later, Byzantine culture. In antiquity, Greeks colonized towns in Sicily and southern Italy: Greek cultural stereotypes concerning women were influential even into the development of Imperial Rome.

SOURCES: I drew this from the research necessary for my web site, Feminae Romanae: The Women of Ancient Rome, and it's bibliography, here.