Classical Athens was a place and time in Western civilization when philosophy and arts flourished. It gave the world some of its most prolific philosophers, from Socrates to Plato, and is considered today the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy. However, though classical Athens may have been ahead of its time in the political system it employed, it was not when it came to gendered roles. The women in classical Athens were mostly domestic in their spheres of influence, and their education was most likely in domestic arts such as cooking (Katz). Like other civilizations, the classical Athenians had their own religion, known today as simply Greek Mythology. These myths and the morals that they reflect are able to inform historians today of much of women’s expectations in classical Athens, especially in regards to their spheres of influence, skills and abilities, and their duties as a wife.
Even goddesses had to follow the expectation for classical Athenian women to stay in the private sphere. Hestia, the domestic goddess of the hearth, was often portrayed as a woman wearing a veil and dressed modestly in classical Greece (Graves). She was known for being non-confrontational and the epitome of domestic life. Women who did not follow this expectation, however, modeled themselves on the goddesses Artemis and Athena. The huntress Atalanta, for instance, had been abandoned by her father at birth, and swore to only marry the man who could beat her in a footrace. Those who lost would lose their lives to her. She eventually married her suitor Melanion, who won their race with the help of Aphrodite (d’Aulaire 178,179). This myth is a typical one, telling the story of a mortal woman who is eventually either coerced or persuaded into remerging with the expectations of women at the time. This demonstrates how the gods, and the society they symbolize, were very critical of a woman who remained unmarried, and even those who tried to were eventually urged to conform.
It is also telling how the mortal women in myths who did initially deny marriage were typically modeled after the goddesses Athena and Artemis. Both goddesses were more masculine than the others: Athena was the deity of a typically male occupancy, war (34,38). She even chose to be a man in many of her later interactions with Odysseus, like when she became the chieftain Mentes (Homer, 81). Artemis, similarity, was a virgin, which was a reflection of how she denied her femininity. She was also the deity of a traditionally male job, hunting (O’Neal). What this reflected of Classical Athenian society is that for women to be independent and in the public sphere, they would have to deny their femininity, yet there was still a chance that they would be at some point forced to comply with the social expectations, much as many of Artemis’ mortal virgin hunters were. Callisto was one such hunter, who was raped by Zeus, and gave birth to a son (Sale).
Perhaps due in part to the fact that women were expected to stay within the private sphere, the skills women were expected to have, as reflected in Greek mythology, are mostly domestic and religious in nature. For instance, Arachne's story, the only surviving version of which is told in the book Metamorphoses by the roman poet Ovid, tells the tale of a mortal woman named Arachne who competes with the goddess Athen in a weaving contest. Arachne was a pupil of Athena, and became so arrogant in her weaving skills that she claimed to be better than Athena herself. Athena then challenged her to a weaving contest, and though both weaved flawlessly, Arachne used her tapestry to make fun of the gods, so Athena angrily tore her tapestry up and turned Arachne into a spider (d’Aulaire 34-38). Besides warning ancient Athenians not to be boastful, this tale also reflects expectations about the skills Athenian women were most likely expected to have. Even the patron god of Athens, Athena herself, was the goddess of handicrafts. Weaving, as it remained for centuries after, was an important, feminine skill that women were expected to be proficient in in Classical Athens (Bundrick).
Another skill set women were expected to be able to use was in religion. For instance, Hecuba, the wife of King Priam of Troy and mother of Cassandra and Paris, chooses a gown to give as an offering to Athena and leads the women to her temple to pray for help in the Trojan war (Homer). The fact that it was an Athenian woman leading other Athenian women praying for divine help in the Trojan war reflects that women were expected to be able to be skillful in religion, whether it be praying or leading prayers. Classical Athenian girls were even sent to the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron to serve Artemis for a year (Golden 84), fulfilling the mythical demand made by Artemis, when a bear at Brauron who was sacred to her was killed by a girl’s brother (Hughes 191-197). Women were allowed, and even encouraged, to pursue religion, becoming priestesses, like The Oracle of Delphi, or the Pythia. The Oracle was the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, and she later became one of the most respectable and consulted sources (Fairbanks).
Greek mythology was also able to reflect women’s duties and expectations in its presentation of women’s duties to their family, especially as a wife, which included bringing honor and children to her family. For instance, in the myth of Niobe, Queen Niobe boasts of having fourteen sons and daughters. She grows arrogant, and even mocks the goddess Leto, mother of the gods Artemis and Apollo, for only having two children. Her children are killed by the twin gods as a result, and she weeps so much she is turned into stones (d’Aulaire 126). Having fourteen girls and fourteen boys was enough for Niobe to compare herself to a goddess, and demonstrates the importance of child-bearing as a duty of women during Classical times. It should also be noted that most mortal women recorded in Greek mythology tended to be known either for their lovers, like Io and Europa, lovers of Zeus (24-27, 108-112), or for their familial relationships, like Danaë, mother of Perseus (24-27, 114-116). This lack of any personalized information about women and instead the considerable focus on women’s romantic and familial relationships can also reflect the importance of Classical Athenian women’s role as wives and mothers.
As mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, bringing honor to their family was an important part of being a woman in classical Athens, and this is an ideal the ancient Greeks reflected in their myths. The myth of Penelope, for instance, the “ideal wife”, who waited twenty years for the return of her husband Odysseus. In the meantime, she refused and hid from all the suitors who came for her hand. In her story, Athena comes to Penelope, telling her to meet the suitors and fan their desire for her, to bring more honor to her husband and son by making herself more desirable (de Jong, 445). Having a “bad wife” was even enough to get the cunning king Sisyphus out of the Underworld— after instructing his wife not to give him a proper burial, Sisyphus was able to convince Hades to allow him to go back to Earth and reprimand his wife (d’Aulaire 127). The extensive number of women who were shown to be “good wives” in Greek mythology exemplifies the expectation that classical Athenian women were supposed to be wife and mother (O’Neal).
In contrast to the women who brought honor to their families, there were also mortal women in Greek mythology who brought shame, and as such, their stories were used as warnings. Athenian law was phrased in such a way that men were able to commit infidelity in order to increase the population, while women were, in the same situation, subject to legal punishment (O’Neal). Such a belief is easily demonstrated by Greek mythology, where women like Clytemnestra, for instance, plotted and succeeded, with her lover, to murder her husband Agamemnon. She was eventually killed by her own son Orestes, who was tried by the patron god of Athens Athena herself. The goddess voted for his acquittal, thus demonstrating how even the gods punished the women who brought shame to their family (Allen).
Women who betrayed their families were also shown to be punished, like the infamous Medea, who helped the Argonaut Jason get the Golden Fleece from her father, and then, in order to help him escape from her father’s wrath, aided him in killing her own brother. She then tricked Jason’s cousins into killing their father. The gods of Olympus turned on her and Jason, and Jason forgot his oath to love her forever. Her story ends with her being abandoned by the man she loves (d’Aulaire 166-175). As Athenian men were obsessed with their personal honor, this myth likely reflects an exaggerated, though true, reality, of how women would be punished if they did anything to shame their husbands and their families (Walcott).
In summation, classical Athens was a place and time that was well ahead of many other civilizations of its time in many areas, whether that be philosophical or political. In terms of gender studies, however, classical Athens was hardly more modern than any other civilization. The women in classical Athens remained mostly domestic in their spheres of influence, and their status was reflected in the system of belief the general population believed in, Greek mythology. Whether it was the women’s spheres of influence, their expected duties as a wife, mother, or daughter, or the skills and abilities they were allowed to have, women in classical Athens saw models of what they should be in Greek mythology, and these models ensured that women remained subservient and secondary to men.
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