SPARTANS
Sparta's women were different from any other Greek women particularly Athenians who saw women as an inferior being that lived at the back of houses without any autonomy or authority. Unlike Athens, where women were considered second-class citizens, Spartan women were said to rule their men.
Let's see what characterized the Spartan woman:
Spartan women were educated. Girls’ education included singing, playing a musical instrument, dance, and the composition of poetry all of which came under the umbrella term mousike (“music”) which was thought to enrich and ennoble one’s character.
- Spartan women could own land, property, and business. Spartan women concentrated on finance, agriculture, and the efficient operation of their homes. Females were the head of the houses and had the last word in whatever decisions were to be made and kept the farm and home running smoothly.
- Spartan women could dress boldly. They usually wore a peplos, a body-length dress, belted at the waist and drawn up to their knees or higher. Unmarried women wore their hair long and married women closely cropped. They wore gold and silver bracelets and necklaces. They also used cosmetics and perfume. Equality was a central cultural value and so Spartan women, more or less, looked alike in terms of wealth.
- Spartan women could legally mate with other males before and after marriage. Female same-sex relationships too and they might continue after the woman had married.
- Spartan women exercised naked in public to encourage female fitness. Female Spartans participated in wrestling, long and short distance running, horseback riding, hurling the javelin or discus, boxing, and racing.
- Spartan women compete with men in sporting events. They even competed in the Olympic Games along with men. Cynisca of Sparta (440 BCE) was a Spartan royal princess who became the first female Olympic champion. Defying the traditional role of women in ancient Greece, she competed in the Olympic Games on horse riding alongside the men and won in two sucessive Olympiads in 396 and 392 BCE. Her triumph in Greek athletics became a symbol of inspiration for women of future generations and her legacy is still remembered today.
- Marriage was very late for Spartan Women, most of times after the age of 20. Unlike girls in other Greek states who might marry as young as 13 or 14, a Spartan woman usually continued her education until 18 or 20.
- Same-sex relationships among men and women were for pleasure and personal fulfillment. There was no such distinction as homosexual and heterosexual, these being modern-day constructs.
Plutarch relates the story of Gorgo of Sparta, wife of King Leonidas who, being asked by a woman from Attica, “Why is it that you Spartan women are the only women that lord it over your men” replied, “Because we are the only women that give birth to [real] men”. By this, she meant that real men were not afraid of strong women, implying the obvious lack of same in the men of other city-states.
We always hear about Spartan warriors as the fiercest and most fearsome of antiquity, and yet, although Athens is frequently referenced as the “birthplace of democracy”, Athenian women had no voice in politics or their husband’s business whereas Spartan women participated freely in almost every aspect of their city-state’s political and social life. Athens was misogynistic, imperialist, and colonialist.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle criticized the independence and influence of Spartan women in his “Politics”, claiming against women’s autonomy in Sparta. What Aristotle and other conventionally minded non-Spartan men feared subconsciously and perhaps sometimes consciously was feminine power. One expression of that Greek male fear was their respect for the Amazons. In the grip of such fear, the male sources often distorted the facts they had access to, usually only at second-hand at best, about Spartan women, and about the Amazons.
Sparta was at its best when men and women were regarded as equals. The female Spartan was honored as the equal of the male in her own sphere of power and authority and, even in the accounts of detractors, performed admirably. It could be argued, in fact, that the strength of the Spartan women allowed for the formidable reputation of the same in the Spartan men.
No Amazon should feel ashamed of being equated with a Spartan.
