Women in Classical Athens

1: New words-
Porne – Prostitutes
Hetaira- High class escorts

2: The ideal Athenian woman, and the ideal Athenian marriage-

. The ideal Athenian woman would be a teenager (around 14), still a virgin, and able to
produce children.
. Fathers would only keep female babies if they could produce a dowry large enough to marry
them off and would only have as many female babies as they could afford to give dowries
for.
. The ideal marriage would be a woman from a wealthy family so the husband could gain a
large dowry. The wife would stay in the house, not interacting with the outside world. She
would produce children for the husband.
3: Why an unmarried woman was problematic-
. The point (to men at the time) of having a daughter was to marry them off; to not be married
was to spit in the face of why they were born (to the men at the time)
. An unmarried woman would remain in guardianship of her father, being a cost to them
forever instead of giving that responsibility to a husband
. If the father died, responsibility of them would turn to other male relatives and they would
have to be guardian to them.
. Some unmarried women became porne, lower class women forced into sex work. Others
could become concubines for important or wealthy men to support themselves. Attractive,
intelligent women could become hetaira, these were more expensive porne who would be
paid for on contract to men. They were expected for sex work but also for entertainment, arts
or conversation.

4: How women were treated as property, and how barbarian women were treated-
. The point of having a daughter in that time was so they could produce children for their
eventual husbands. They were only seen as ways to re-produce and were always kept inside.
They were always under legal guardianship of one man or another, traded around like objects
and only seen for their attractiveness and ability to procreate. Barbarian women were allowed
to marry Athenian men In times of struggle and war, if citizen population was lowered and
they needed more.