Throughout
the Ancient world the relationships between men and women in Sparta
were the cause of perplexity and consternation. Because of the unique
status and behavior of women in Sparta, they were often perceived as
having an "unnatural" and dominant role. Aristotle
blamed them for Sparta's decline and an Athenian woman
(perhaps somewhat jealously) asked the Spartan queen Gorgo:
"Why is it that only Spartan women can rule men?"Gorgo
replied: "Because we are the only women who give birth
to men."
To
appreciate the unique aspects of Spartan marriage, it is helpful to
remember what marriage was like for elites in other ancient Greek
cities. The comparison is with Athens, because we have the
most reliable information about Athens, and the focus is on the
aristocratic elite because only they were not craftsmen or laborers,
had the luxury of household slaves, and so are comparable in terms of
social position and lifestyle to the Spartiates.
Athenian
men
generally did not marry until their early thirties, but it would have
been a rare Athenian man who went to his marriage bed without extensive
sexual experience. For a start, it was common for boys to be
the objects of the homosexual attentions of men a few years older.
These relationships were considered "honorable
liaisons" and could have pedagogical benefits when older
lovers took an interest in their
protégé's education. It is
interesting to note, however, that in the many erotic depictions on
Athenian pottery the boys are not portrayed enjoying the experience,
but rather stoically enduring it.
Once
an
Athenian male reached maturity and citizenship status, he ceased to be
an object of sexual desire and became a predator. He might
select a boy or youth of his own class, reversing the roles of a few
years earlier, or he might take advantage of the vast array of sexual
wares offered for sale in one of the liveliest trading centers of the
ancient world. (There is considerable evidence that one of
the principal wares that brought Athens her wealth was slaves.)
These included prostitutes of both sexes, ranging from the
cheap varieties offered in streetside stalls to outrageously expensive
courtesans, who limited and selected their clientele. In
between were all the various kinds of male and female "entertainers,"
who performed at the symposia that
young men of wealth attended on a more or less regular basis.
Eventually,
the need for an heir would induce a man, by many accounts reluctantly,
to marry. In order to do so, an Athenian would look about for
a man or
family who was politically useful to him or who could be counted on to
pay a good dowry, and inquire about possible brides. It is
highly improbable that a prospective bridegroom would have glimpsed any
of the bride-candidates, because these (as we shall see below) were
kept carefully guarded inside their homes and only seen in public on
rare occasions, when they were carefully segregated from all strange
males. The marriage negotiations would have been conducted
with the prospective bride's male guardian. After
the dowry was paid to the groom, the bride would have been collected
and removed to the groom's house in a joyful ceremony
accompanied by singing, music, dancing, and feasting.
From
the
groom's point of view, except for the presence of a wife in
his household, very little else changed. Nothing stood in the
way of his continued attendance at symposia or his patronage of
brothels. In fact, a man was perfectly in his rights to also
contract with a poor man for his daughter to come into the household as
a concubine – and of course, an Athenian man was within his
rights to sleep with any of his slave girls. The marriage was
only significant as a means by which a man begat legitimate heirs – although in periods of population decline, even this role was weakened
by laws that granted citizenship to the children of citizens by
concubines and foreigners, thereby degrading a wife’s status
even further.
Athenian girls were married as soon after the onset of
menstruation as possible.
This meant that most brides were roughly half the age of their
husbands. Athenian girls were reared in their houses on a
diet smaller and less nutritious than that of their brothers, lacking
meat, fish, spices, and wine. They were kept indoors, without
exposure to direct sunlight or physical exercise, received no formal
education, and were usually illiterate. They were taught that
women should speak as little as possible, and certainly not in the
presence of men.
Once
an
Athenian maiden reached sexual maturity, she knew that her male
guardian would marry her off, but she had no say in the
matter. Normally girls were married to a complete stranger
– a man they did not see until the day he came and took her
away from her home, family and everything she had known until then.
She was removed to a strange house, sometimes far away from
her parental home, and surrounded by strangers. She might
share the
household with her husband's mother, sisters, and even his
concubines.
Here
she was
still not allowed control of money worth more than a bushel of grain,
and it was considered a disgrace for her to be seen standing in the
doorway of her house, much less in the market or elsewhere.
Talking to
a strange man was cause for scandal – until she was old
enough to be a grandmother. She might leave the house only to
go to the childbed of a neighbor, to attend a wedding or funeral, or
to take part in religious festivals.
It
is
estimated that on average women in Athens were brought to childbed six
times in their lives, and that infant mortality ran between 20% and
40%.
Even more devastating are frequent references to exposing
children. A father could decide to kill any child that
seemed an unnecessary financial burden. Because of the need
to provide
a dowry for daughters, and given the low value placed on women
generally, it is fair to assume that, as in other cultures from China to
Afghanistan today, girls were far more likely to be left to die by their
own fathers.
Last
but not
least, if a woman was raped or seduced, her husband was required by law
to divorce her. Even if a husband was understanding or
devoted, Athenian law mandated divorce or the man lost his own
citizenship.
In
Sparta the picture was dramatically
different. Spartan boys left their parental homes at
the age of 7 to
start their public education in the agoge. At age 21 they
changed the
barracks of the agoge for the barracks of the army, so it was not until
age 31 that they could at last move into their own home or kleros and
live with their own families. This fact has led many modern
scholars to impute widespread homosexuality to Spartan men, but such an assunption ignores entirely the reality surrounding those barracks.
First,
even
as small boys, Spartan males spent much of their time out of doors
playing, hunting, riding, and swimming. And everywhere the
boys went they encountered the female children of their class – because,
unlike Athenian girls, Spartan girls were required by law to go to
public school just like their brothers. The girls, too, were
required to go to the public playing fields, racecourses, and
gymnasiums in order to learn to run, wrestle, and throw the discus and
javelin. The girls, like their brothers, swam in the Eurotas
to cool
off. And the girls exercised and swam in the nude just like
their brothers.
In
addition
to sport, Sparta was notoriously "devout"
– which meant, among other things, that Sparta honored the
various gods at a series of festivals throughout the year, some of
which lasted days. These festivals included processions,
athletic contests, and horse and chariot racing – all for both
sexes. A chariot race for women is specifically mentioned at
the
three-day Hyacinthia, for example. There were also dancing
and singing competitions. Again, the girls were expected to
perform just as the boys were. Again they sometimes did so in
costumes
that were (from the perspective of foreigners) "scanty," and sometimes
they danced nude.
Because
Sparta was a small society (at the peak of its power, under Leonidas I,
there were just 8,000 male citizens of all ages), by the time youths
reached adolescence they had seen all their prospective marriage
partners engaged in a variety of activities and dressed in everything
from what passed for formal dress in Sparta to nakedness. It
is important to stress that they hadn't just seen
them. No Spartan law or custom suggested that women should be
silent, while many foreign accounts decried Spartan women's
outspokenness. Boys and youths of the agoge were expected to
be still and respectful in the presence of their elders, and girls were,
too – but not with each other! No one who has
raised or worked with teenagers can truly believe that Spartan youths
and maidens played, hunted, swam, rode, sang, and danced side by side
from age 7 onwards without talking to – and flirting
with! – one another. The bigger question is rather
how the Spartan school authorities and parents kept the entire system
from getting out of control.
One
answer
may well be that they didn't. Since Spartan
marriage customs (from the early archaic and into the mid-classical
period) forbade dowries and there was no religious component to the
marriage ceremony, the Spartan marriage practice may have in fact
amounted to elopement. According to contemporary sources, the
Spartan marriage ceremony was as follows: the bride shaved her hair
like a boy (of the agoge), donned men's clothing (presumably
the chiton of the agoge), and waited alone in the dark. The
bridegroom came alone and surreptitiously after curfew, "took
her" (but not necessarily home!) and then stole back to
barracks. That sounds suspiciously like two young lovers
trying not to be caught by the officers of the law patrolling the city
streets, because they were up to "something" of
which the authorities did not approve! No complicated and
mysterious "cross-dressing" rituals are required to
explain the custom if it is, looked at in this light.
Plutarch claimed –
and has been quoted by historians ever since, apparently without anyone
pausing to reflect – that as a result of this surreptitious
marriage custom, men "might even have children before they
saw their own wives in the day." Nonsense!
As I have pointed out above, Spartan bridegrooms would have
seen their future wives by day almost daily from the time the girls
were 7. Furthermore, they would have seen their brides as
often as they liked by day afterwards, too! Young matrons were
just as free to engage in sports, riding and driving, or to go to market
or hang about the temples as their younger sisters –
especially if they were not yet in charge of a kleros! It may
be true that young Spartan couples did not risk making love in broad
daylight, but given human nature, I sincerely doubt it.
Alternatively,
of course, Spartan law and authorities really were stronger than the
forces of human nature, and Spartan youths and maidens dutifully did
what the law required of them. This required that a youth
still in his prime (still on active service, aged between 21 and 30)
select a suitable girl of good character "old enough to enjoy
sex" (interpreted as 18 onwards), that he first got her
father's permission, and that he then took her alone in the
dark of night before returning to barracks. Not so difficult
to live with even for ardent lovers….
Under
the
circumstances, it is safe to say that the necessity of seeking sex
outside of one's class and age group was considerably reduced
in Sparta. Since the city policy prohibited brothels inside the city
but the youths and boys had to sleep in barracks located inside the
city, their opportunities to visit such establishments were far more
restricted than in other cities. As to women of a lower
class, these consisted of periokoi and helots. It appears
that the perioikoi, like other Greeks, kept their women locked inside
their houses in their own communities and gave the Spartiates little
opportunity to seduce them. Because perioikoi were free, any
use of force against them would have brought the Spartiate severe
punishment. It probably didn't happen
often. As for the helots, even these were far less accessible
to Spartiate men than chattel slaves were to other Greeks.
First, they lived in the countryside, often far from the
city, and second, they were not private but state property.
Because
they were not chattel slaves and could marry and have children of their
own, they lived in their own houses surrounded by their own families,
including fathers and brothers. This made them far less
vulnerable than female chattel slaves. Obviously, Spartiates
could easily use force against these male protectors as well as the
girls themselves, but in doing so a Spartiate would have been damaging
state property and would have been liable for punishment – if it were
without good cause. Whether Spartan magistrates would
consider a youth's passion for a helot girl sufficient
justification for damaging valuable workers is, in my opinion, dubious.
Despite the tales of "hunting helots," the fact is
that these incidents are only recorded from the late 5th century
onwards as the situation in Sparta deteriorated rapidly. At
all times, the Spartan economy depended on helots so heavily that it is
inconceivable that there were widespread slaughters – except in
very unusual circumstances. Furthermore, the
Laconian, as opposed to the Messenian, helots were largely loyal.
They would not have been so, if there were widespread rape
and violence against women.
From
the
woman's perspective no less than from the youth's,
marriage in Sparta was never to a stranger. Spartan girls had
watched, cheered, jeered, and flirted with the bachelors of the city
from girlhood onward. They knew them all by name, patronymic,
and reputation. If a girl's father came home and announced he
had a suit for her hand from one or another young man, she would have
an opinion. Nothing in Spartan law or custom prevented her
from voicing it. Whether her father listened to her was another matter,
but it is not likely that a Spartan man would force a husband on a
daughter over his wife's opposition – and she, no
less than her daughter, would know all about the eligible bachelors
from watching them on the playing fields and dance floors. In
short, Spartan girls might not have chosen their husbands, but they had
a good chance of vetoing a truly distasteful candidate.
As
a wife, at
least after her husband retired from active service and went to live on
his kleros, a Spartiate woman took over control of an estate,
household, and the family finances. She also had control of
her children until they reached the age of 7 and her daughters
again from puberty to marriage (as it is widely presumed that they no
longer lived in the agoge during this stage). Because she had
helots, no Spartiate wife was required to do any menial tasks, and if
she managed a prosperous estate she had the money and time for personal
pleasures such as horse- or dog-breeding and hunting. She
continued to go into the city not just for festivals but to go to the
market or fairs and to exercise, since women were encouraged to remain
fit into old age, just as Spartiate men were. If her estate
was a significant distance from the city, she drove a cart or chariot
to get there, and once in the city she met with friends and family and
spoke to whomever she pleased without discredit.
There is no
reason to think that Spartan women, on average, had more or fewer
pregnancies than other Greek women. They probably had more
live births and lower infant mortality because they were older and
healthier when they conceived, ate better during pregnancy, and fed
their infants better afterwards. A Spartan mother's
sons did, of course, have to pass the inspection of the elders.
If a male child had some deficiency that made it doubtful
whether he would be able to develop into a young man capable of taking
his place in the line of battle, the elders could order it
exposed. But a mother had the assurance that this would only
be done because of a physical fault, not on the whim of the
father. Furthermore, there is no evidence that girls were
subjected to the same test.
While
it is
impossible to generalize about what a Spartan – any more than
an Athenian, or American – marriage was like, several
features are clear. The partners were more equal in age and
education than their counterparts in other parts of Greece.
They were not strangers when they came into the marriage, and
in the majority of cases they would have both consented in some
way. They would have had a longer or shorter period of
quasi-marriage, when they were not living in the same household and the
wife was not yet in control of the estate, but within a few years they
would set up house together. Henceforth, a man and his
sons' citizen status depended upon his wife's good
management of the family estate, since a failure by the kleros to pay
mess or agoge fees would have resulted in the loss of citizenship for
father or son respectively. It is therefore not surprising
that in this household, the wife ruled supreme and alone. It
is inconceivable that a concubine was allowed to live in it, or that
"flute girls" came to entertain the husband and his
friends. Altogether, this was a good formula for a marriage
based on mutual respect and partnership.
One
last
point. It is widely assumed that "because the men
were away so much of the time" Spartan women basically lived
in a world of their own and related mostly to other women. The alleged
"frequent absence of Spartan husbands" is cited as
an explanation for lesbianism and adultery. This is
astonishing when one considers that even men on active duty did not
drill all day – probably not more than a few hours
– and that dinner at the messes did not last as long as the
symposia of other Greek cities. On a normal day, it is
probable that Spartan husbands were away from home less than the
average working man today, who leaves home at 7 or 8 am and returns
only after a commute and an 8 hour workday some 10 hours or more later.
The evidence suggests, furthermore, that during the frequent
festivals, men and possibly even the boys were with their families all day. How much of their free time –
and Spartan men, far more than the tradesmen and craftsmen of other
cities, had plenty of it – was spent with their wives
depended on the relationship itself, just as it does today.
As for Sparta's frequent wars, until the Peloponnesian War,
these were purely seasonal, and the campaign "season" was short
– two to three months
at the most. Again, in modern times many men travel on
business, reserve duty, or to pursue their own hobbies for that many
months out of every year. Few Spartan women saw so little of
their husbands as the wives of men on duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, or
serving with the navy today.
None
of which
means there were no unhappy marriages or no opportunities for women to
become interested in other men. What is noteworthy is that in
Sparta there were no official sanctions against adultery.
Helen, the most famous of all Spartan women, ran away from her husband
and lived with a younger man for ten years, causing a war with immense
loss of life – and then returned to Sparta, resumed her
duties as queen, and "lived happily ever after."
She was honored in Sparta with monuments, temples, and
festivals – despite her adultery. Other real
Spartan women, including queens, got away with adultery with impunity
as well.
It is hardly any wonder, then,
that the rest of the ancient world viewed Spartan women as licentious
and detestable. But then again, as Leonidas' wife Gorgo
tried to explain in her much-quoted quip: Spartan women were
who
they were because Spartan men were strong enough and self-confident
enough to appreciate them.
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