Do you agree that a citizen's wife in Athens had a miserable life?

Women in Athens were very rarely allowed to leave the house and therefore they were stuck in the oikos all day, everyday (except at festivals). The purpose of this was to give them protection from other men. Although this was a very effective method of keeping men away it is seen by some people as unjust as they were therefore kept in the oikos at all times and prevented from socialising with other men or women. The door to the oikos were deliberately off centre so that it was very hard for passers by to see in and catch a glimpse of the wife as well as making it difficult for the women to see out. The oikos also had a courtyard so this meant that the women could still get outside and get some fresh air. Therefore they weren’t really stuck “inside” the house they just weren’t allowed out onto the street.

However, although the women did not get as much chance to meet other Athenian citizens as men did, they still had some opportunities. These opportunities were usually at festivals and religious activities as well as at family events. At these times women had a chance to talk to other women as well as very occasionally men.

Unfortunately there was another major event that women were not allowed to take part in. This was the symposium. The symposium was a very big part of an Athenian mans life. It was like a dinner party but there was one almost every day of the week. They were held at different houses every night and it was a very large social event which usually ended in everyone being incredibly drunk!! However, because it was an event with other men, the women of the oikos were not allowed to join in.

A good thing about an Athenian woman’s life was that it was very unlikely that they would be divorced because the dowry protected them. The dowry was something that the husband got from the wife’s family to help pay for her expenses. However, if a man divorced their wife they would have to pay back the entire dowry no matter how much of it they had spent. Therefore the marriage was generally insured for life. The only problem was that the dowry was the possession of the husband but because the wives never had any financial activities this wasn’t really a problem.  

Women didn’t appear to have a proper life. They were treated by the man and seen as a possession and they had no value. They had no career and all they ever did was handle the oikos. Their job in the oikos was very important though and they never had any time to be bored. In the oikos they had a number of important tasks to do such as cooking bread and meals. She could either do this herself or organise a slave(s) to do it for her. Another important job was making clothes for the whole family by spinning and weaving. Again she could either do this by organising slaves or do it all herself. She could also join in with the slaves in this task if she wished too. One job that took a fair amount of organisational skills was sorting out what food needed to be stored and which they would keep out and eat during the month. She would have to make sure she kept out the right amount of food. The woman also had to make sure that the house was clean and tidy and suitable for the man to live in and hold the symposium in.

Some people think that women had the same routine every day however this was most probably not the case because they wouldn’t have to bake bread every single day and they wouldn’t need to make clothes every day. They only had to sort the food out once a month and they had a whole variety of tasks which weren’t always the same and didn’t necessarily have to be completed every day. Unfortunately however, their tasks took a long time to complete but they could always give the slaves the worst jobs. Also although their tasks took quite a long time, they saw what they had to do as their duty. Some women were also lucky enough o be educated at home so they didn’t just have to complete long and laborious tasks all day.

Quite a few people point out the fact that women only ever dealt with slaves and children all day. Although this was part of their life, it was what they saw as normal. Besides, they did also see their husbands and relatives of his such as the aunts and grandmothers. This would usually be during the time when they were first married and these elder figures would teach her how to look after the house and organise and care for the slaves. As they had to be educated in how to look after the house this also suggests that looking after the house wasn’t as easy and boring as it sounds.

Children, although the women had to deal with them all day, were actually quite important in ancient Athenian lifestyle. Also, if the woman was lucky to have a boy she would be more highly respected than she would if she had a girl.

The man of the house may have been a miserable side to the Athenian woman’s life because they had no choice in whether they married them or not as it was the fathers’ decision as to whether they did or didn’t. However, this being said, even if they didn’t like their husband they wouldn’t actually have to spend that much time with them being as how the man was usually out  of the house. They were also in charge of the house in his absence so this was in some ways a good thing.

 During the life of an ancient Athenian woman they had no political dealings as they were not allowed to vote and had no say in how the polis was run. They also were not allowed to appear in court which was slightly unfair because a testimony could be given against them without them knowing and they would be unable to defend themselves. The fact that they were not allowed to vote wasn’t too much of a problem for two reasons. The first being that they never left the house so what happened outside of the oikos wasn’t too much of a problem or a concern for them. The other was that that way they didn’t have to find out any information from their husbands on the candidates which could have been biased depending on what the husband thought himself.

All in all I do not agree that women had a miserable life mainly because they knew no other life so they would see theirs as normal. Also they knew that all Athenian women had the same life as them. I do agree however that some of their tasks may have been long and laborious and therefore made some moments of their life miserable.