3 ms·

Wikipedia says > Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity.

• Clewza313 6y ago
  Part III of the linked blog demolishes that pretty effectively: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/29/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-iii-spartan-women/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/29/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p... TL;DR: Spartan elite women were slightly freer than Athenian women, mostly because all their housework was outsourced to an army of slaves. But they were not citizens, could not choose who to marry, and were by and large treated as property, up to and including lending to other men. The 95+% of Spartan women who were not in the elite, on the other hand, led lives that were miserable even by the low standards of antiquity, including random rape and murder during the yearly crypteia purges.
  • railton 6y ago
    He also points out in this post that rape was so common there's an entire, identifiable social class of Spartan bastards (_nothoi_ / _mothakes_). > But we don’t need to guess or rely on comparative evidence, because this rape was happening frequently enough that it produced an identifiable social class. The one secure passage we have to this effect is from Xenophon, who notes that the Spartan army marching to war included a group he calls the nothoi – the bastards (Xen. Hell. 5.3.9). The phrase typically means – and here clearly means – boys born to slave mothers.
    • neolog 6y ago
      Is that suggesting that all "bastards"' mothers were raped?
      • krageon 6y ago
        When you're a slave, you don't have a choice about what happens to you. If you cannot refuse, you cannot consent. That makes it rape, yes.
• otherme123 6y ago
  Careful with what "spartan" means. There were a lot of spartans, and the bulk of them were helots (slaves), a good bunch were perioikoi (kind of free, but not citizens) and less than 5% spartiate (full citizens). Only spartiate women enjoyed more rights than other greek women. And Sparta has a higher share of helots than any other polis. If you are a woman in Sparta, almost sure that you are a helot (as many rights as a cow). Remember also that Spartiates regularly went to war against the helots, and Plutarch even remarked how cruel and harsh they were with the slaves. So Sparta was arguably at least as bad as any other polis to be a woman unless you win the birth lottery as a spartiate.
  • YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    I think care should go the other way. "Spartan" clearly means "a citizen of Sparta", not just "an inhabitant of Sparta" just as "Athenian" means "a citizen of Athens", and not just "an inhabitant of Athens". The article seems to be making the same kind of assumption but I believe this is an unorthodox interpretation of the term, "spartan". For a modern example, I've lived 15 years in Britain (i.e. the UK) and I'm legally resident in the country but I am not, in any meaning of the term, "British". Perhaps there is a confusion between the term "spartan" (which you render with a small "S") and "Spartiate"? In Greek there is only one word, "Σπαρτιάτης" ("Spartiates"). I believe the use of the term "spartan" to distinghuish between citizens of Sparta and e.g. helots or perioikoi, is a modern habit. As in very modern- as a young Greek I was fascinated with the ancient era and so I read a lot on ancient Greece but I don't remember such a distinction anywhere in the (Greek-language) sources I studied. Indeed, if I try to translate "spartan" in Greek so that it sounds like a different word to "spartiates", I'd have to say something like "Σπαρτινός". But that is not a word I've ever heard spoken in Greece, nor, dare I say, has anyone else.
• kergonath 6y ago
  But then, Wikipedia is to be read critically, and is not a source of unquestionable truth. Particularly when there is a value judgment such as in your quote.