The Spartan woman was equal to the Spartans in education and intellectual cultivation. It was a society that honored its women as much as its most glorious warriors.
The Spartan who died heroically in battle had the same status as the Spartan woman who died in childbirth: Their names were written on tombstones outside the city. So that everyone would remember them and keep them in their memory.
And this is where the thinking begins for historians: how could such an authoritarian system, oppressive in most aspects of individuality, be so progressive as to grant women such a degree of freedom and education?
The little information we have about the Spartan woman comes from descriptions between the archaic and Classical Periods. When all other women of the Greek world live in service to their male masters, the Spartan woman seems like an absolute exception.
Even in Athens, they had few rights, despite the increasingly progressive nature of the city-state. Perhaps it was the fact that in Athens, the woman was the property of her husband but the Spartan woman was raised and controlled solely by the state.
“Young Women of Sparta” (Jeunes filles de Sparte)
As long as the women of her time stayed at home and ran the household, she trained as a girl to get an athletic figure. Among her privileges, or rather her duties was education.
Historians attribute the unprecedented degrees of freedom she enjoyed to the fact that all work in Sparta was done by helots. That is, wherein other cities one had to weave, the Spartan woman was free from such duties. Her only concern, like that of the Spartan, was to serve the state.
The man served it when he became a good soldier. The woman, as long as she remained physically robust and gave birth to healthy offspring. Individualism was subordinated to the collective good, and it is here that many scholars see the basis for the incomparable freedom and equality enjoyed by the Spartans.
Their first job was to create the next generation of citizens. And therefore, she had to be not only physically healthy but mentally healthy as well.
Society encouraged her to be intellectually active and to study the subjects that also concerned the man: state policy, laws, reading, writing and mythology.
The theater of ancient Sparta with Mt. Taygetus in the background
Sparta even wanted to get her to the point where she could compete with anyone who challenged her athletic ability, her mind, or her knowledge. She also grew up alongside the man, trained with him, and ran in the same races.
The only thing she didn't participate in was military training, as it was only mandatory for boys. But as long as they were in the playgrounds and high schools, girls received a formal education. Iamblichus admits that "the Spartan women were probably very educated".
And although historians today argue whether this was true for all Spartans or exclusively for the girls of the ruling class, it is more than certain that the Lacedaemonian woman could read, write, and participate equally in the discussions of men.
Name vase of the Spartan artist known as the Rider Painter
An incident was written down by Plutarch in the "Laconic Quotes", about someone who mocked the women of Sparta, only to receive the answer of Gorgos, the wife of Leonidas: "We dominate our men because we are the only ones who give birth to men".
The Spartan mother gave the little girl homework and then let her compete with the boys in public discussions at festivals and religious events.
While the rest of the Greek women were required to wear corsets and tight belts to emphasize their femininity, dressed in elaborate gowns they wove themselves, the Spartan women walked around almost naked.
“Young Spartans exercising” (Edgar Degas)
That is, where it was taboo for the rest of the Greek world for a woman to show any part of her silhouette, the Spartan woman simply threw on a short tunic. This left her legs completely uncovered.
The Athenians blamed them for this because they showed their hips to the men. But they exercised daily, running, fighting, and throwing the discus and the javelin. With such intense physical activity, it's not hard to understand why they didn't wear chubby women's clothes.
Plutarch remarks in this regard (in the "Life of Lycurgus"): "The nakedness of the virgins had nothing to do with filthiness, for there was a shame, but there was no obscenity." The men wore correspondingly little clothing, and this impressed no one. Except those who were not from Sparta.
Socializing and flirting were, after all, foreign words in the everyday life of the Spartans, only in times of religious events was such a thing permitted.
Men also lived in barracks until they had completed their 30 years of military service to the state. Nevertheless, society expected men and women to meet secretly and have sex and enjoy their lives as a couple.
There was even a law that punished them if they didn't.
A good indication of the degree of parity and autonomy that the Spartan women enjoyed is the fact that marriages in ancient Sparta were basically consensual! The union of husband and wife is exclusively their personal affair. Neither the interests of the family nor the parents and the neighborhood.
“The Selection of Children in Sparta” (Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours)
Of course, there were still some conditions, but the degree of freedom in the choice of partners was unmatched in the entire archaic world.
The Spartan woman married when she was 18 years old a Spartan man probably around 30. And this because the man had the right to have some property and to make his home with the woman of his choice only after the age of 30.
If the age difference sounds large in Spart then let's think that in Athens girls married at the age of 14 with much older men.
30 years was something of a ceiling for the man in Sparta since he ran the risk of being punished if he remained single, useless in terms of procreation and the continuation of his city. The man's 30-year term of military service usually meant that the marriage was short and the couple would remain separated as he had to return to the camp.
But he would secretly enter the bride's paternal home at night and the parents would pretend not to see. But if he was caught disappearing from his barrack, he was punished.
“The selection of the infant Spartans” (Giuseppe Diotti)
The legislation of Lycurgus, which granted all these privileges to the Spartan women, took special care of the most important aspect of their own emancipation: the right to property.
The Spartan woman could own land, all the financial means to support her family, that is, even to act as its head. Although this aspect does not find historical consensus, the source of doubt is not the woman's right to own land, but how much control and ownership the Spartan citizen generally had over his land.
In reading Plutarch's "Parallel Lives", the verse about Lycurgus, the historian claims that historically the earth was passed from man to man descendant. But when the man was absent, either at war or dead, or there was no descendant to succeed him, the property passed to the woman. And it remained to her until she remarried or had a boy.
In fact, Aristotle clearly attributes Sparta's failures to the many rights, wealth, and influence that the Spartans had over the state, the land, and the administration. It is very possible that the Spartan woman could bequeath her land wherever she wished, something truly unheard of for an ancient society.
Ancient Sparta (John Steeple Davis)
We also know that where there was a dowry, the wife owned half of it, while the Athenian daughter was only entitled to 1/6 of it. What we don't know is whether the state remained essentially the sole legal owner of all the land.
The Spartan woman was the real mistress of the house and that is exactly what society wanted. The man spent his life in Spartan education and war, and someone had to stay behind to take care of the household. But also to control the Helots. And that is the reason that she had to be so strong.
The Spartan woman spent most of her life without the man by her side. He, if he was lucky and still alive, would complete his military service by the age of 40. Until then, the woman had a lot to think about and manage and had to be very dynamic in managing her property, household and slaves.
Only from Sparta, we know examples of women who made great fortunes precisely because they properly managed the land they owned. Aristotle once rebukes them (in "Politika") because they owned "almost two-fifths of the landed property".
Bronze Statuette of Athletic Spartan Girl
It was only after the humiliating defeat of the Spartans at Lefkra in 371 BC when the male population was greatly diminished and the Helots were in constant revolt, that Spartan society began to treat women more cynically.
Faced with a weakened and humiliated state, men were convinced that the socially important role of women was to blame for all the city's woes.
And Aristotle's critique coincides with the current views of the Spartans, who believed that not only women's property rights were a problem, but also their higher education itself.
"Then the liberty of women is injurious both to the aim of the state and to the prosperity of the city", writes the philosopher from Stagira characteristically in his "Politics".
Women in Sparta, according to Aristotle, had so many rights that the question of legislation for equality of the sexes arose. Aristotle blamed their prestige, freedom, and education alone for the downfall of Sparta and its civilization.
