Greek Women Vs Athenian Women Essay

Women have been both compared to a “briskly hog”(Semonides, 550 BCE) and a powerful being in the Greek city-states. The only difference is that it was in different city-states. In Athens women were viewed as useless, besides the fact they could produce the next generation. In Sparta women were viewed as helpful and powerful. The treatment of women in Athens was horrific, harsh, and awful, unlike the treatment of women in Sparta which was fair, and sometimes even favored. Women in Athens were useless, untrustworthy, ignorant, and harmful human beings in the eyes of the male gender. One Male described women as, “Pernicious is the race; the women tribe Dwells upon the earth, a mighty bane to men” (Hesiod, 700 BCE). Athens was a Greece city-state ran by a democracy. In Athens there were no slaves. Athens also didn’t have a full time military. In Athens men owned the land, ran the farms, governments and churches. Women were not

Athenian women had very few rights and Spartan women had almost equal rights to men. Athenian women had arranged marriages as soon as they hit puberty. Spartan women “were not married off as soon as they reached puberty… with most not marrying until the age of eighteen.”(O’Pry,2012). To Spartans both the male and female genders were important, but the Athenians believed the male gender was more important (O’Pry, 2012). Spartan women could inherit land, and dowries (Fleck, 2012). Athenian women could not own land, inherit property, or pass properties on to their heirs (Fleck, 2012). Sparta’s economy was kept by women versus the Athenian’s economy, which was kept by the men. The reason that these two city-states were ran so different was because of Sparta’s need for a full time military. They had to give Spartan women rights and power to keep their economy going. The Athenian men didn’t have a full time military so they could work on the estates, keep the economy