My name is Cassandra and I am living in what will be known as the Golden Age of Athens, and what will become one of the greatest eras in Greek history. I am, however, 15 years old and of marrying age and all of the greatness of Athens does not apply to the women of my age or of any age. For us, it is difficult, because we see the lives of our fathers and brothers, yet our lives our very different. Many Athenians view us as merely a distraction and a means to produce more men and soldiers.
There is a lot of pressure right now on my father to find a suitable husband for me and this is a big task. Fortunately, my father is a well-respected and well-off business man and he has prepared a good dowry for me so I will have many possible husbands. I don’t like the thought of marrying a man who is 30 years old. What will I have to say to him? Buy my family wants me to have a husband who has voting rights and who is already a man of standing in Athens.My father has already had some offers, but he wants to be careful in choosing someone.
My cousin, Hestia, had a bad husband and was divorced. When my uncle, her father, demanded her dowry back, her family was bankrupted and her husband was given the total rights to her two small sons. She has not seen them for over a year now and cries every day.
So you want to know what a day in my life is like. Well, my Mother is teaching me all sorts of things to make me a good wife. I start my day when my brother is getting ready to go to school. My mother wakes me and has given the job to cook the morning meal before my father and brother get ready for their days. We do have a cook too, but she is already at the market and I may not go out except on special occasions like funerals, weddings, or other special events. I prepare the honey and pat out the cakes and place them on the flame and serve them to my father and brother. I burn them sometimes and get lots of complaints. I also practice serving them and my brother bothers me by asking for more cups of water when he really doesn’t want any.
After they leave, I always want to go out in our courtyard, but my mother doesn’t like that. She says that respectable Athenian women have to have the skin light like “white-armed Hera”.
Then we spend the day spinning and making clothes which I don’t like at all. I am not very good with spinning and often have sore fingers. My mother says no husband will want a woman who can spin an even yarn. I don’t care. I do like to sew though and am working on a formal robe for my father I hope he will like a wear.
When my brother gets home from school, I am always curious about what he is learning and don’t understand why I can’t go too. I sneak down from our second floor quarters (where all the girls and women have their rooms) to talk to him about what he saw and did at school and his walk through the agora. It is so exciting hear about all the things that happen in the center of Athens.
For our main evening meal, our cook makes a delicious meal. I will need to have a cook like her when I am married because I can’t ever cook like that.
My favorite part of the day is after dinner when my father often has guests over. I listen from my window to their lively conversations about politics and theory or hear the musicians who entertain them. It is also fun, when my mother gathers with her friends who come to our house with their daughters and we can play and chat.
And then it is time to go to bed and think about another day and what I must do to prepare to be a good wife and mother.
Women were viewed as highly sexual beings who could not control their sexual urges and therefore had to have restricted rights for their own benefit. Men also believed that women represented the forces of chaos, and should be treated as they are depicted of, as animals. Based on societys viewpoints, three classes of women formed in Ancient Greece. The work and freedom of a woman depended on her social position in society. The classes of women consisted of hetaeras, prostitutes, and wives. The hetaerae and prostitute classes were both seen as sexual companions of men, and were paid to do sexual favors unto them. This shows that men had little respect for these classes of women and treated them more as animals, than of human beings. Ancient Athens also consisted of a large slave population of women. These women slaves had no rights and were always at the mercy of their master. On account of societies sexism of women, unjust political rights were enforced specifically for them.
Athenian women had virtually no political rights and were controlled by men throughout nearly every stage of their lives. Legal rights of women were very few, which further denounced their position in society. Women had no rights to vote or take part in the operation of the state. They also were not allowed to own property in their own right, because of their restriction to commerce, and so the control of ownership belonged to either their father or husband. These examples reflect society�s belief that women were not capable of intellectual matters, simply because they were considered more as property than as human beings. The politically segregated...
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