- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Note to the Reader
- Abbreviations
- [UNTITLED]
- Introduction
- I Women in Classical Athens—Their Social Space: Ideal and Reality<sup>†</sup>
- 2 Ideology and “the Status of Women” in Ancient Greece<sup>†</sup>
- 3 The Athenian Woman
- 4 The Sociology of Prostitution in Antiquity in the Context of Pagan and Christian Writings
- 5 Classical Greek Attitudes to Sexual Behaviour
- 6 The Social Body and the Sexual Body<sup>†</sup>
- 7 Law, Society and Homosexuality in Classical Athens<sup>†</sup>
- 8 Pandora Unbound: A Feminist Critique of Foucault's History of Sexuality<sup>†</sup>
- 9 The Cultural Construct of the Female Body in Classical Greek Science<sup>†</sup>
- 10 Gender and Rhetoric: Producing Manhood in the Schools<sup>†</sup>
- 11 Representations of Male-to-Female Lovemaking<sup>†</sup>
- 12 Women's Life in Oriental Seclusion? On the History and Use of a Topos<sup>†</sup>
- 13 The Attitudes of the Polis to Childbirth: Putting Women into the Grid<sup>†</sup>
- 14 Archaeology and Gender Ideologies in Early Archaic Greece<sup>†</sup>
- 15 Concealing/Revealing: Gender and the Play of Meaning in the Monuments of Augustan Rome<sup>†</sup>
- 16 Satyrs in the Women's Quarters<sup>†</sup>
- 17 A Feminist Boomerang: The Great Goddess of Greek Prehistory<sup>†</sup>
- 18 The Asexuality of Dionysus<sup>†</sup>
- 19 “Vested Interests” in Plautus' Casina: Cross-Dressing in Roman Comedy<sup>†</sup>
- 20 The Hippocratic “Airs, Waters, Places” on Cross-Dressing Eunuchs: “Natural” yet also “Divine”<sup>†</sup>
- Intellectual Chronology
- Further Reading
- Bibliography
- Index
The Athenian Woman
The Athenian Woman
- Chapter:
- (p.44) 3 The Athenian Woman
- Source:
- Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome
- Author(s):
H. D. F. Kitto
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
This chapter focuses on the position of women in Athens. It is the accepted view that the Athenian woman lived in an almost Oriental seclusion, regarded with indifference, even contempt. The evidence is partly the direct evidence of literature, partly the inferior legal status of women. Literature shows us a wholly masculine society: domestic life plays no part. It is orthodox to compare the repression of women in Athens with the freedom and respect that they enjoyed in Homeric society – and in historical Sparta. The evidence also includes a large number of painted vases (fifth century) that portray domestic scenes, including some funerary-urns representing a dead wife as living, and taking farewell of her husband, children and slaves. There are also sculptured tombstones – quite ordinary ones – showing similar scenes. Then there is Attic tragedy. One of its notable features is its splendid succession of tragic heroines: three Clytemnestras, four Electras, Tecmessa, Antigone, Ismene, Deianeira, Iocasta, Medea, Phaedra, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen.
Keywords: Athens, women, Oriental seclusion, legal status, domestic life, repression, freedom, respect, Sparta, Attic tragedy
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Note to the Reader
- Abbreviations
- [UNTITLED]
- Introduction
- I Women in Classical Athens—Their Social Space: Ideal and Reality<sup>†</sup>
- 2 Ideology and “the Status of Women” in Ancient Greece<sup>†</sup>
- 3 The Athenian Woman
- 4 The Sociology of Prostitution in Antiquity in the Context of Pagan and Christian Writings
- 5 Classical Greek Attitudes to Sexual Behaviour
- 6 The Social Body and the Sexual Body<sup>†</sup>
- 7 Law, Society and Homosexuality in Classical Athens<sup>†</sup>
- 8 Pandora Unbound: A Feminist Critique of Foucault's History of Sexuality<sup>†</sup>
- 9 The Cultural Construct of the Female Body in Classical Greek Science<sup>†</sup>
- 10 Gender and Rhetoric: Producing Manhood in the Schools<sup>†</sup>
- 11 Representations of Male-to-Female Lovemaking<sup>†</sup>
- 12 Women's Life in Oriental Seclusion? On the History and Use of a Topos<sup>†</sup>
- 13 The Attitudes of the Polis to Childbirth: Putting Women into the Grid<sup>†</sup>
- 14 Archaeology and Gender Ideologies in Early Archaic Greece<sup>†</sup>
- 15 Concealing/Revealing: Gender and the Play of Meaning in the Monuments of Augustan Rome<sup>†</sup>
- 16 Satyrs in the Women's Quarters<sup>†</sup>
- 17 A Feminist Boomerang: The Great Goddess of Greek Prehistory<sup>†</sup>
- 18 The Asexuality of Dionysus<sup>†</sup>
- 19 “Vested Interests” in Plautus' Casina: Cross-Dressing in Roman Comedy<sup>†</sup>
- 20 The Hippocratic “Airs, Waters, Places” on Cross-Dressing Eunuchs: “Natural” yet also “Divine”<sup>†</sup>
- Intellectual Chronology
- Further Reading
- Bibliography
- Index
