Women in Sparta and Athens

Today every society, religion, or group of people has a different way of viewing how the world should be. One of the main cultural differences one may see is the way women are treated in different parts of the world, by the people who reside there. Well, that is not so different from the way it was in ancient times too, all of the city-states had their own government and own rules for society. The Spartan and Athenian city-states had very different thoughts when it came to the way women were treated, and how they thought it was suitable for them to act. Athenian women were treated appallingly compared to Spartan women. They were thought to be almost worthless, except for the fact that they could give birth to baby boys. One of the greatest literary men of Athens, Euripides, has proclaimed in his book, Meda, “If only children could be gotten some other way with the female sex! If women didn’t exist, human life would be free of all its miseries.”(Graham) Spartan women were definitely allowed greater freedom, mobility, and were respected far more highly than Athenian women.
In both Sparta and Athens, it was said, that the women’s place was in the home, but definitely not in the same way. In Athens women were more or less owned by their husbands and were expected to be extremely obedient when given an order. Athenian women were barely even allowed to leave the house, unless it was necessary. They were mostly there to bear and raise their children, spin and weave fabric, and depending on the number of slaves she had, she may have had to clean the house, and oversee the preparation of food; which the women were barely allowed to eat. (Women of Athens) Fortunately, for women in Sparta, this was not the case. These women were permitted to own their own property or they looked after their husband’s land when they were away training or fighting in war. They also did not have to do as much around the house, and usually did not raise their children; they had nurses to do...