Monday, April 30, 2007
The Irony Of Athenian Women
Throughout mankind’s existence on earth we have always depended on women in one way or another. Whether this notion is represented as a mother figure, a daughter, a peace bearer or an affectionate lover, women have always been essential to the survival of human civilization. Even though the Athenians thought women were inferior to men they still recognized this necessity about women and celebrated them by acclaiming a young girl of a very prominent background as the hope of a whole nation.
So with this undoubted appraisal of women what exactly is the irony of the Athenian women? Well the irony starts off by how women were viewed by the males of Athenian society. The views of the people in charge of Athens were that women were entitled to be a threat to human civilization with violence and promiscuity. These claims however were really not based on any factual evidence. They were only based on the struggle for men to hold all the power in society. How this affected women though was that it treated them to a life of luxury. Like people of our day and age with mental conditions, women lived above the law. If there was a case of adultery in Athenian society it was not the woman’s fault. They treated an act of adultery as the male’s fault. Society would just give the woman that was involved in the incident the benefit of the doubt because they were seen as not as intelligent as men and were more prone to promiscuice behavior. This were we start to unfold the irony Athenian women. Women in Athenian society lived far more secure and enjoyable lives due to their necessity in the world. Even though they were looked at as inferior they enjoyed a life of security over a life of freedom. They were of course handed this life of security on a silver platter because an Athenian male without a wife was not taken seriously by society.
What I thought was interesting about this notion of a lack freedom in exchange for security is that there is still remnants of this ideology in our own society. Think of the reasons a women decides to marry someone; sometimes it’s out of true love sometimes it is out of sexual pleasure and sometimes it’s even for intellectual stimulization but sadly a lot of the time it is for the ability to go max out a husbands credit card on 5th Avenue in New York. So why do men after thousands of year fail to realize this? It is do to the simple fact that through having a wife they feel less ostersized by society. History is just a story that repeats itself and through classical literature we have the ability to understand the eternities and realize that what is going on now is a story that has already been told.
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