History of Western Civilisation - Wednesday 5th Period: Discussion 3: Greek Politics and War

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

All right, class. I've received a few death threats for the way I treated the Peloponnesian War in the last class... which is to say, I didn't. If you care... good for you. I don't.

So, now we're going to talk about Greek Politics and War. That is only slightly an oxymoron.

Your homework, due next Tuesday but turned in to this post is to give me at least one hundred words craftily cut-and-pasted, possibly from here on some aspect of Greek political life. Go.

[[OCD threads are up! Go ahead.]]

Comments

Re: HOMEWORK: Western Civ Disc 3

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

Inequality and Women in the City-state

Social and economic inequality among citizens persisted as part of life in the polis despite the legal guarantees of citizenship, The incompleteness of the equality that underlay the political structure of the city-state especially revealed itself in the status of citizen women. Women became citizens of the city-states in the crucial sense that they had an identity, social status, and local rights denied metics and slaves. The important difference between citizen and non-citizen women was made clear in the Greek language, which included terms meaning “female citizen” (politis), in certain religious cults reserved for citizen women only, and in legal protection against being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Citizen women also had recourse to the courts in disputes over property and other legal wrangles, but they could not represent themselves and had to have men speak for their interests, a requirement that reveals their inequality under the law. The traditional paternalism of Greek society--men acting as “fathers” to regulate the lives of women and safeguard their interests as defined by men--demanded that every woman have an official male guardian (kurios ) to protect them physically and legally. In line with this assumption about the need of women for regulation and protection by men, women were granted no rights to participate in politics. They never attended political assemblies, nor could they vote.