Spartan Women: The Free Slaves
"Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?"
"Because we are also the only ones who give birth to men."
Plutarch, Moralia 225A and 240E
When asked by a woman from Attica (most likely an Athenian citizen) about why women held power over men at Sparta, this was Queen Gorgo’s reply. This is probably one of Plutarch’s most famous quotes that people draw from as evidence of a matriarchal Sparta. It is no doubt significant as it shows up twice in his writings, once from Sayings of Spartan Women and another in Life of Lycurgus. However, keep in mind that most of authors and texts for Sparta’s way of life were limited and written from a non-Spartan viewpoint with our main ancient sources from Plutarch, Xenophone and Aristotle. Even so, Spartan women were well known for having the most liberties than anywhere else in the Greek world; they had a reputation for promiscuity, their outspoken natures and their intellect, a complete antithesis to how Athens desires their women to be. One may ask why Spartan women were so much freer than their Athenian counterparts, and the answer lies in the second part of the above quote – that Spartan women were the sole people to give birth to real men. In other words, Spartan women received education, property rights, had sexual freedom and had great social influence not out of respect for their individuality, but because of their reproductive value.
Education
Most of the Spartan institutions that lead to Sparta’s rise to power could be accredited to Lycurgus. He was the lawmaker who had transformed Sparta into the strict, militaristic society it was known to be by using his reforms to advance the three Spartan virtues of equality, military fitness and austerity (Forrest 50).
These laws and virtues he implemented had included specific allowances that allowed Spartan women the liberty they are known for having and their divergence from the rest of their Ancient Greek sisters. The greatest of those allowances was a state prescribed education program for both men and women starting at childhood (Pomeroy 18). In other city states, education and literacy were reserved for the men to ensure that fact that women’s efforts would be solely on the household chores. Not in Sparta. The girls’ education program of Sparta had an athletic as well as an artistic component in order to tout their physical and intellectual culture. Females took part in races and trials of strength which included running, wrestling, throwing the javelin and discus and racing in 2-horse chariots (Blundell 151). Women also learned how to read, write as well as other aspects of mousike (music, dancing, poetry) before they were married at 18 – much later than their Athenian sisters – in order to cultivate into the mothers Sparta needed (Pomeroy 20). Simply put, they believed a strong healthy mother would attract men who excelled in andragathia, “manliness,” and together they would bear strong and healthy offspring for the state (Germain 156). Furthermore, Sparta had to educate their women, as they were left behind to run the businesses of the state when the men were often gone on campaign, it was crucial for them to be well versed in handling the affairs of the city.
Another reason Sparta choose to spend state funds on their daughter’s education was to cement its philosophy into their minds. They believed that the girls and the boys had to be conditioned with state values in order to maintain the stability of their system because it was up to women and men to maintain the laws. And it worked. Having instilled in them Sparta’s military ethos and that “child-bearing was the most important activity,” women were perhaps the most vociferous of Sparta’s ideology (Xenophon, Constitution 1.4). Most of Plutarch’s writings even present women humiliating and killing their sons if they had transgress these laws. The most notable declarations is the one where a mother hands her son a shield as he goes off to war and tells him to come back “either with it or upon it” (Moralia 240e, 6). Sparta had made sure that a women’s “liberation from personal dominance by their husbands” had actually subordinated them to the “all-embracing interests of the state” (Blundell, 157).
Land Ownership
The most important liberties of Spartan women were the right to own land independent of male control and also a reason that they received an education from the state. The precise workings of the land ownership system is uncertain in Sparta; whether female inheritance came from inheriting the family estate upon her father’s death or came from receiving a portion upon marriage as a pre-death inheritance is still debated on (Blundell 156). In any case, women were significant owners of land and it was most likely due to the drastic decline of male citizens from the earthquake of 464 BC and the numerous failed battle campaigns around the same time (Germaine, 48).
The disparity in female adult citizens and male adult citizens is also linked to the state imposed laws. Sparta is warrior society above all else, and the females had an advantage when it comes to survival rate. Infanticide was regularly practiced, subjecting males to testing and examination by older men and eliminating those they deemed physically inferior. Then if a boy passes that, he would be enrolled into the violent and rigorous education program, agoge, at just seven years old. Once a citizen, a male adult would be required to serve in the military until the age of sixty, constantly on campaign. So the constant reallocation of property from one family to another due to a man’s death may have made the state develop women’s property rights to battle against this short-term instability (Hodkinson, 1989). In short, females only came to a concentration of land because the older generation had to pass on their land to them because of the frequent deaths of Sparta’s men.
With land as the most valuable commodity, and such a fertile land at that, large ownership over property in Laconia gave women substantial wealth and power (Pomeroy, 109). According to Aristotle, Sparta was “ruled” by women and “managed many things,” meaning they had a power to persuade men who governed the city with their wealth, thereby indirectly governing Sparta herself. Since women owned 2/5ths of the land, it is plausible that land wealth was the leverage Spartan women held over their male counterparts. (Germine, 3), and probably what made their voices so powerful.
Open Marriages and sexual customs:
According to Plutarch and Xenophon, Sparta had observed some sort of open marriage. This type of practice could be called “husband doubling” and “wife sharing” (Pomeroy, 61). The main reason for this practice was because Sparta did not extend citizenship over the peoples they conquered so birth was the only way to acquire citizens. Xenophon tells us that Lycurgus had made it illegal for older men to keep all their younger wives to themselves (Xenophon. Spartan Society. 1) in order to not restrict the amount of children those younger women could potentially carry. Women could find a young man that she admired for his andragathia, “manliness,”and have sexual relations with him, with her husband’s approval, in order to sow a “good seed” into her to produce healthy children. The young man’s offspring could then be adopted by the husband as his own. Alternatively, if a man did not want wife but wanted to have children, he could find a woman who had previously given birth to healthy offspring and strive to obtain her husband’s consent (Blundell, 154). In a society obsessed with eugenics, it is no surprise that Sparta arranged marriages or encouraged intercourse between healthy reproductive adults, they wanted the best quality of warriors for the state. Even the boys’ education Agoge means “the raising,” which was originally used to refer to cattle and pack animals, which were selectively bred (Germaine 233). Again, this shows that a Spartan woman’s sexual freedom had the sole purpose of giving the state more men for their infantry.
Social Influence
Another liberty Spartan women had was the capability to fraternize with their male counterparts in public. Along with their education, women were allowed to exercise with men and trade political ideas. A Spartan women’s outspoken nature and their dominance in domestic and political matters may be due to their education, small age-gap between a husband and wife and the fact they they could own land (Blundell, 155). The most notable example of a vocal, influential women is Queen Gorgo as her account presents how authoritative a Spartan women’s voice can be.
To understand the significance of Queen Gorgo’s influence we must detail context surrounding her actions. At the beginning of the Classical Age, was the Marathon battle of the Persian Wars that was initiated by the Ionian revolt in 499 BC. The leader of the revolt, Aristogoras, travelled to both Sparta and Athens to seek military assistance against the Persians. Athens had been convinced to join the Ionians and went to war with them, but inevitably lost to Persia. This victory gave King Darius an expansion towards his empire with a foothold in Europe and completion of his revenge for the burning of Sardis, which was an insult as well as an economic blow to the Empire. Even though Darius had his eyes on Sparta, his resentment was mainly against Athens as Sparta had tried to make amends with Persia and also did not participate in a war against Persian territory (Cartledge. Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World. pg. 67). If we are to believe Herodotus’ account, Spartan’s refusal to join the Aristagoras was all thanks to one outspoken woman – Gorgo.
Gorgo was the only known child and daughter of King Kleomenes I and the eventual wife of King Leonidas I. She was also still a young girl when Aristagoras came to proposition her father, and was there playing at her father’s side. Upon hearing the Ionian’s proposal, Kleomenes adamantly refused citing that it was too far from the Peloponneus. However, Aristagoras knew that Spartans were receptive to bribery and offered the king large sums of gold for his military aid (Germaine, 146). It was this at this moment that Gorgo spoke up, demanding that Aristagoras be taken away before he could corrupt her father, protecting the integrity of her father as well as the laws of Lycurgus (since gold or silver was illegal to own at the time). The sheer fact that this girl would speak out against her father, would be preposterous to an Athenian male, particularly since it concerned the highest affairs of the state. Athenian women were discouraged from speaking much and especially weren’t allowed to talk in front of unknown men. Xenophon. (1994) Oeconomicus Even more astonishing is the fact that Gorgo is giving her political opinion on such an important matter and that her father heeded her advice. By advising her father, Gorgo may have prevented Sparta from taking part in a fruitless Ionian revolution. In this situation, Princess Gorgo is the one who exhibits clear judgement, discipline and contempt for wealth, vastly different from the gold hungry sirens Aristotle described Spartan women as in his Politics B. 1269b. 13-1270a. In the end, the truthfulness of this story is irrelevant when compared to its audience of upper class Athenian men. The fact that they did not find this story bizarre meant that there is a prevailing assumption for Spartan women to voice their opinions, regardless of age, and to that their opinions are worthy of consideration.
Tie in how this also was only means for reproduction (blundell?)
.
Conclusion
Although the warrior state of Sparta granted the great freedoms its daughters were famous for, the rules were actually implemented to ensure Sparta progressed as a military state – systematical, authoritative, and dangerous. Spartan women were seen as the vehicle by which Sparta constantly advanced.
utilized by the state to replenish her manpower they were afforded tremendous respect and power within the community