Spartan women

• What was a Spartan girl’s education?

  
  

  exercise: running, wrestling, casting discus, hurling javelin
• What was the relationship between girls and boys?

  
  

  Nudity was the norm, weren’t seperated, allowed to choose if they wanted to get married, allowed to talk
• Syssition


  barracks
• When would they get married?

  Usually 18, early 20s because they thought older girls can produce stronger children
• How would the girls have access to boys?

  Girls would heckle them when they excersised
• Who is the mariage arranged by?

  girl’s parents
• Aim of betrothal


  Produce strong spartan children
• What happens to the bride’s hair when it’s the wedding ceremony?

  She has to shave it
• What does the bride do after the wedding?

  waits in dark room so groom can ‘capture’ her
• Can she appear in public after the wedding?

  Only when she’s pregnant
• What age can the groom live with the wife?

  30
• Wedding ceremony


  Secret
• What does the bride wear on the ceremony day?

  Dressed in men’s clothes
• What is a Spartan wife‘s duties?

  Give birth to strong children, send sons to agoge, managing kleros, providing contributions to the syssition twice a month, support ideology of Spartan warrior state ‘Be tough, be brave’
• Polyandry


  More than one sexual partner
• Kleros


  Family farm
• agoge


  military training school
• What are Greek attitudes towards Spartan women?

  Spartan women are strong, aren’t pure, promiscous, admired for natural strength
• What did Spartan women do?

  Manage farm estates, made decisions about crops, equipment, sale of surpluses, own property, inherit land, economic control of husbands estates