I'm not agreeing that women should be quiet and stay at home
That was really only true for the upper classes anyway. The average peasant woman would have been very active and had to be out in public a lot, simply because they couldn't afford to keep half their resources locked away in the back of the house - the women needed to be able to work the fields, go to market, etc. I'm not saying it was all wonderful equality or anything, but it was better than the life of a rich woman in Athens, as far as freedom goes.
What I have always found interesting, though, was that even though women were not considered equal in matters of politics or other such things, they *were* equal in matters of religion - they could be priestesses, make offerings (even large expensive permanent ones), set up new temples and cults, participate in sacrifice, etc. Guess having half your deities be female kind of makes that inevitable!
If you're interested, there's a great new book called "Portrait of a Priestess" that dispels quite a few myths about what women could and couldn't do in ancient Greece, especially in matters of religion.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 05:01 pm (UTC)That was really only true for the upper classes anyway. The average peasant woman would have been very active and had to be out in public a lot, simply because they couldn't afford to keep half their resources locked away in the back of the house - the women needed to be able to work the fields, go to market, etc. I'm not saying it was all wonderful equality or anything, but it was better than the life of a rich woman in Athens, as far as freedom goes.
What I have always found interesting, though, was that even though women were not considered equal in matters of politics or other such things, they *were* equal in matters of religion - they could be priestesses, make offerings (even large expensive permanent ones), set up new temples and cults, participate in sacrifice, etc. Guess having half your deities be female kind of makes that inevitable!
If you're interested, there's a great new book called "Portrait of a Priestess" that dispels quite a few myths about what women could and couldn't do in ancient Greece, especially in matters of religion.