Love, Sex & Gender Hierarchies in Ancient Greece
A (long, originally 10-page) essay written in 2010 for the course Studies in Ancient Greek Art and Architecture: Art, Gender and Sexual Politics in Ancient Greece (Concordia University). I do not presume to be an expert in Greek art or culture (class was an elective), but this was absolutely fascinating to research. Please let me know your thoughts, concerns or, dare I say, corrections :)

Our modern society would probably balk at the images and literature projected to us from Ancient Greece. In fact, I am sure it would be horrified at the traditions depicted therein. Can we be blamed? No. Our social conditioning has given us a different understanding of love, sex and gender hierarchies, thanks to hundreds of years of change between then and now.
One must not forget that the Ancient Greeks were vastly different from modern man because of their own social conditioning which dictated their morals and actions. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall, in fact, claims that “traditions are not given or fixed, but imagined and invoked in order to substantiate one particular vision of shared identity” and are “imposed from without by the State” to construct a purified community[1].
In Ancient Greece, the symposium was the main communication tool to educate the young as well as sediment the knowledge within the old, and the power of word was the main vehicle of that knowledge, the guide to the world and, most importantly, the tool to defining the identity of the aristocracy and its surroundings. This essay will explore and seek to bring light to those concepts which were defined in the drinking parties: what love was or wasn’t, how Greeks defined and treated sex, and how the community approached gender hierarchy. As poetry and literature were powerful media through which to communicate, I will use them, as well as vase painting interpretations, to argue my points.
On Grecian love
Firstly, love is a wildly discussed subject in Ancient Greek texts though, to understand their notion of the word, one must accept that they had a completely different doctrine that governed their entire sense of being: “They had to interrogate nature and their own hearts for the mode of action to be pursued. […] Utility, appropriateness, and the sense of the beautiful were the only guides which the Greeks could find to regulate them in the relations of the sexes to each other[2].”
If you were to ask the Greeks where the “flying feeling” of love came from, they would assuredly answer “from the gods”. Love, indeed, was not from this world, and Plato explains this in Phaedrus in a complex conversation between Socrates and a younger man named Phaedrus[3].
On Grecian love, for men
In Socrates’s first speech, he explains that while all men desire beauty, some are in love and some are not. We are ruled by two principles: “One is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best[4]”. Temperance is aided by opinion with the help of reason. When emotion rules the heart devoid of reason, however, Socrates explains that this downfall is called excess, and that it is outrageous. When the lover tries to shape his beloved (boy) into something pleasing for himself rather than into what is best for the boy, “the madness of love” takes the place of “right-minded reason”. A non-lover will do none of that, Socrates states.
In his second speech, after realizing his error of quick judgment, Socrates admits that love is not specifically evil (“for if love be, as he surely is, a divinity, he cannot be evil[5]”) and that he was wrong to only skim the surface of a simple definition of love. He then begins to list the four kinds of madnesses and their divine bearers: prophecy from Apollo, the mystic rites and relief from present hardships from Dionysus, poetry from the Muses, and love from Aphrodite. The soul, he continues, is immortal as it is ever in motion6 and sometimes takes wings and travels to heavenly realms to visit the gods and experience true divine beauty. It is ever drawn to the divine thereafter. That, Socrates declares, is the madness of love:
When it is “imputed to him who, when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with the recollection of the true beauty; he would like to fly away, but he cannot […] and he is therefore thought to be mad. […] All souls do not easily recall the things from the other world. […] They may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt with amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive it[7].”
Some may mistake that reminder for beauty itself, pursue the pleasure of what they see and eventually lose their heads. On the other hand, recent initiates in Beauty (and their souls) will look upon a beautiful boy and experience an “effervescence” of joy and emotion[8], and intense pain when they do not. The boy is therefore the only physician for the pain. Self-control is the pinnacle of every Greek man’s mantra to himself, for to love rightly is to win the “true Olympic Contests” with a fight between self-control and divine madness. A lover’s friendship is divine, Socrates concludes; that of a non-lover seeking only pleasure is cheap and “will breed in your soul those vulgar qualities which the populace applauds” and leave you and your soul “a fool in the world below”[9].
Indeed, love was an expression of joy in the beauty beheld in another. “The Greeks loved everything that was beautiful, but it was in the human body that they saw the noblest form of earthly beauty […] It was the perfect and harmonious development of every part that struck them with awe10.” Such an example of beauty inspiring rapture can be found in Plato’s Chamides:
Amazement and confusion reigned when he came in, and a second troop of admirers followed behind him. That men like ourselves should have been affected in this way was not surprising, but I watched the boys and saw that all of them […] turned and looked at him, as if he were a statue. Chaerephon called me and said, “What do you think of the young man, Socrates? Does he not have a beautiful face?” “Most definitely,” I said. “But you would consider him quite faceless,” he replied, “if he were to volunteer to take his clothes off. For he is the crème de la crème in respect of his physique.”
On Grecian love, for Grecian women
Women are not excluded from such admiration. For example, there is a written account by an audience member at the court of justice where the hetaera Phryne was being judged. Orator Hyperides was beginning to feel hopeless toward his case when the idea struck him to tear open her garment. Thanks to “a bosom perfectly marvellous in form” she was at once acquitted and the whole Greek community would have surely agreed with the judges[11].
That said, men either loved or hated women — both passionately. Greeks coveted their beautiful female creatures, which may explain why they were so protective of them. Even so, satirical poet Semonides of Amorgos writes a chafing invective[12] in a play for a character named Susarion: “Women are an evil, but nevertheless, O countrymen, it is not possible to have a household without evil, for to marry is an evil and not to marry is an evil[13].”
Another satirical poet, Hipponax, adds: “A man has only two very pleasant days with his wife — one where he marries her, the other when he buries her[14].” This one at least acknowledges that the wedding day (and night) can be very pleasant indeed.
Other poets (Philemon, Euripides) also reiterate that woman is a necessary evil. Yet Euripides paints most of the women in his tragedies as tender, self-sacrificing, and capable of pure love.
In Homeric writings, women are as they are expected to be in Ancient Greece: they “have almost no right; they are entirely under the power of man, and they live in continual uncertainty as to what they destiny may be[15].” As in fairy tales, they may be carried off for the hero to save them. Above all, though, they are meek and will always charm their abductor until he has no choice but to fall in love with her — or rather, becomes their friend and companion. Helen of Troy, for example, never tried to excite Paris. She was merely beautiful, temperate, chaste, and knew her womanly works to perfection. These gifts of the gods could do nothing but attract him; in other words, he was helpless to her charm.
On Grecian love, in couples
Homer never wrote anything but happy marriages for mortals — even Odysseus returned to Penelope, who had been waiting patiently for him and cleverly discouraging any suitors that came. There is no love-making in his works either, nor flirtation: “A man who wished to marry a girl proved the reality of his desire by offering the father a handsome gift for her[,] undertaking a heavy task, or engaging in a dangerous contest[16].” The woman, once married, would eventually come to love her husband. This is as everyday citizens in Ancient Greece treated marriage.
In Olympus, however, all bets are off: “The gods have no dream of loving only one […] They do not look much beyond the present[17].” Eternal devotion amongst gods is unheard of in Homeric texts. Most take mortal lovers and women quarrel with their husbands.
For example, the following poem by Homer tells of Hera’s jealousy that Thetis came to beg in a favour that Zeus owed her, in order to strengthen the Trojans: “Treacherous one, what god has been plotting counsels with you? Always it is dear to your heart in my absence to think of secret things and decide upon them. Never have you patience frankly to speak forth to me the thing that you purpose.” Zeus replies, irated, “Dear lady I never escape you, you are always full of suspicion. Yet thus you can accomplish nothing surely, but be more distant from my heart than ever, and it will be the worse for you.”[18]
This seems like a purely human argument, yet ironically in Homeric literature this sort of thing never happens between married mortals. Propaganda to not emulate the gods? Surprising, considering they are the foundation of the Greek religion. Then again, these gods have been together longer than humanity, therefore perhaps their unpure words and actions were excused by men who, as satiric writers would surely say, would not survive a thousand years with the same “evil beings” as companions.
On Grecian love, perspective of hetearai
As mentioned previously, “the one method of culture open to [all] women at that time was poetry[19].” Sappho of Lesbos taught her pupils “to weave into verse the noblest maxims of the intellect and the deepest emotions of the heart[20]” in order to escape the routine to which respectable women were forced. She taught them about passion, close connections, love, and to soothe, to relax, and to seek marriages from choice[21].
Hetaerai also spoke of or acted from love. Socrates speaks highly of Hetaera Diotima of Mantinea as “his teacher in love, when he gives utterances, in Symposium, to the grandest thoughts in regard to the true nature and essence of divine and eternal beauty[22].” Aspasia of Miletius advises Socrates on how to win the affections of a boy:
“Do not ignore my message, but listen. It will be much better for you. For as soon as I heard, my body was suffused with the glow of joy, and weeping not unwelcome fell from my eyes. Restrain yourself, filling your heart with the conquering Muse; with her help you will conquer him. Pour her into his desiring ears. For she is the beginning of love in both parties. With her help, you will master him, offering to his ears bridal gifts for his heart[23].”
Prostitutes hetaerai may be, by choice or not, but it does not mean they are unfeeling and incapable of love. Indeed, when Alcibiades had to flee for his life, a hetaera, courageously true to her lover, accompanied him and even performed funeral rites for him. Some hetaerai chose to perform only for their favourite customers, which shows a certain level of desire and devotion.
Proof of affection, without sex, in same-sex or opposite-sex relationships in vase paintings is rare but not unseen. The half-naked hetaera playing the krotala and dancing to the flute-playing youth[24] is definitely not averse to “flirting” with him. Her foot is close to his — one more movement and she could be stroking his leg and thigh. The hetaerai at their toilette[25] could be friends or lovers, but the tender touch of the crouching girl to the other’s pubis is not hateful or nonchalant as though she cannot wait to get it over with. The cup painting where one side shows a man stroking a boy’s genitals and the boy touching the man’s chin is not fraught with anxious overtones. Already there is a certain level of affection, though when we see the other side of the cup we can see the boy responding to his lover quite enthusiastically: he is jumping into his arms as the man sports an erection[26]. Both parties are clearly enjoying this intimate moment.
On Grecian love, a conclusion
As we have seen, then, love in Ancient Greece was driven by the need to experience beauty, though, unchecked, desire could lead a man to take meaningless pleasure and lose his head. Women were the pride and jewels of Greek men, however often men would prefer the company of hetaerai to their own wives, whom they did not always speak of in compliment. Homeric literature, on the other hand, paints a wonderful portrait of love and harmony in mortal couples, although immortal couples often viciously fought. Finally, hetaerai were no strangers to love; indeed they were often quite learned about the subject.
On Grecian sex culture
It would be prudish to talk about love and not follow the subject with that of sex, which they treated as a purely natural act. As love was understood differently in Ancient Greece; so too was sex. They did not treat same-sex relationships as homosexual, man/boy relationships as pederastic, man/prostitute (if the man was married) as illegal, or even man/woman as heterosexual. Such terms were coined much later and our current, modern understanding of sexuality cannot be superimposed onto Ancient Greek morals.
On Grecian sex, and hetaerai
Together with the gymnasium and the festival games, the symposium was the breeding ground of aristocratic culture in Greece. The drinking parties “created a powerful, unifying effect on the participants […] and resulted in a form of bonding outside the norms of the polis and the social constraints of the family[27]” where knowledge was subtly but surely disseminated through philosophical discourse, song, dance, music and poetry, complete with hetaerai and sex[28].
Hetaera is the Greek word for courtesan and is related to the male hetaeros: comrade, associate, friend. Therefore, the hetaera is a woman who associates with men, privy to their knowledge. The original female word is believed to have been an ancient cult title of Aphrodite: Aphrodite Hetaera[29]. The courtesan was a high-price, freeborn, cultivated spirit, skillful in flattery, wit, literature, philosophy, etc. In other words, they entertained and drew men’s minds away from their political and business concerns in genteel and brightening ways. Myrtilus writes:
“And then if one of us happens to come in feeling troubled, she greets him with pleasing flattery; she kisses him, not squeezing her lips together, as if he were her enemy, but opening her mouth as sparrows do; she sits him down, she soothes and gladdens him, and soon takes away all his troubles and makes him happy again[30].”
As the only women present at the drinking parties, the hetaerai were sole representatives of their sex — for respectable women dwelled far away from these revelries — and their sexual availability to male gaze, fantasy and touch played a crucial role in constructing gender hierarchies at the symposia and beyond.
On Grecian sex, and adulthood
The symposium also served to initiate boys into the world of adulthood, and as we come back to sex, we discover that it is indeed one of the paths he must take in order to become a man proper, and respected besides. Young boys learned the arts of reading, writing, music and athletics with a male pedagogue from the ages of 6 to 13, after which time they were introduced to the gymnasium and symposium where they would be courted by older youths of about 20. If a boy accepted the courtship of an admirer, “the relationship became a physical one with the adolescent boy either the penetrated partner in anal intercourse or the recipient of intercrural intercourse[31].”
It is not absolutely clear from literature or other forms of art whether the relationship went as far as the former, but there is plenty of proof of the latter in vase paintings: the “man copulating intercrurally with youth”[32] is quite distinctly displaying an older man with his erection penetrating between the youth’s thighs. A sleeping youth sits off to the side. In the “homosexual group sex; intercrural copulation and the odd man out[33]”, several men pair off together; the older man in the middle is obviously enjoying sex between the youth’s thighs. It seems “intercrural intercourse, in which the younger partner remained standing and unaroused and did not adopt a submissive posture, was the preferred mode of sexual contact between males[34]” on vases. Young citizens were thus spared a public humiliation and their reputations were left intact.
Once a boy reached adulthood and grew a beard, the roles would reverse and he would be a boy’s lover and play the sexually active role in the relationship. This practice “aimed at teaching the youngsters to respect their elders[35]”. However, “men who were too keen on chasing boys ran the risk of being considered wild”, which means to indulge in passions without inhibition[36].
On Grecian sex, and women
At a certain age these young men were introduced to their first women besides their mother (and sisters): the hetaerai. They were “courtesans rather than prostitutes: they were often highly trained in the various skills of the symposium, and commanded great prestige and high prices[37].” There were also lesser prostitutes: slaves or low-born girls who needed the money. A hetaera would generally be treated with respect; the lowly prostitute, however, did not fare so well at the symposium or even outside. Rape was defined only by social standing. Being a slave or prostitute meant that you were at the mercy of the person paying your wage[38]: “We’ve come together, a party of men with huge erections, and when we feel sexy, we strike and strangle whom we please[39]”.
Vase paintings depict these poor women in just such crass situations with men cruelly manhandling them for their specific desires. Prostitutes can be identified from their coarse, close-cropped, even boyish haircuts. A man is about to beat a prostitute while the man on the left protests the rough handling (from her face, I wonder if she actually enjoys sadism, for she does not look frightened but rather excited about the beating ahead)[40]. A man threatens a reluctant prostitute with a stick if she does not bend to his wishes[41].
Indeed, “sexual violence was an integral part of the symposium and Athenian society had a high degree of tolerance for it. One of the hazards of prostitution […] is the abuse by the customers to which the women are exposed” and they had no defenses against it[42]. Hetaerai also could be manhandled, but considering their high status within Athenian male circles, they were better protected.
The missionary position is missing from many vase paintings, yet there are a few examples, most probably of man and well-loved hetaera. A balding man is probably enjoying the position with a frequently-hired hetaera who is even about to let him kiss her, an act also very rarely seen on vase paintings between opposite sex partners[43].
According to most scholars, these kinds of naked amorous displays could not be of a man and his wife, but more and more scholars are starting to consider that possibility, as there is usually no visual indication that the women are hetaerai[44]. Moneybag or no moneybag, it is argued that these women are simply enjoying a healthy sex life with a husband who does not despise spending time with them[45].
On Grecian sex, and hetaerai
Of hetaerai, much is said in good, and they were even revered. Here the choral ode describes Xenophon of Corinth dedicating a hundred sacred prostitutes to Aphrodite after his double victory at Olympia in the stadion (running race) and the pentathlon (long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, stadion, wrestling):
“Young girls with many lovers, servants of persuasion in wealthy Corinth who burn the golden tears of fresh incense, often flying in your thoughts to the heavenly mother of desires, Aphrodite, you my children she has permitted without blame in delightful acts of love to pick the fruit of soft youth. When compulsion calls, all is fair […].[46]”
Hetaerai mastered verbal exchanges with their customers: flattering them, using riddles to entertain, and double-entendres, to titillate, to hold discursive control and “disrupt normative class and gender categories. Besides these, they also mastered poetry, music, rhetoric, philosophical discussion and theatrical entertainment[47].
In fact, hetaerai were so well-versed in poetry and prose that men of political and philosophical backgrounds often relied on them to guide them in their business or writing forays. As I mentioned previously, Aristotle and Plato held hetaerai in great esteem and even published some in-depth discussions with them. Emperor Tiberius kept a sex manual written by Elephantis of Alexandria for ready reference during orgies[48]. Indeed, their opinions on all matters were highly sought and not at all censured by even the sternest of Greeks.
On Grecian sex, and gods/goddesses
Perhaps the most evocative example of lovemaking in Greek literature is that of the fifth Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, in which the goddess, disguised as a human maiden, seduces the human Anchises. Great care is put into the foreplay of enticing his senses and having him gaze upon her. Clearly, nudity in Homeric literature is something that is covered and uncovered with reverence and great detail, but the sexual act itself is a “fade-to-black” affair:
“Now when Anchises saw her, he marked her well and wondered at her mien and height and shining garments. For she was clad in a robe outshining the brightness of fire […] Also she wore twisted brooches and shining earrings in the form of flowers; and round her soft throat were lovely necklaces. And Anchises was seized with love […] first Anchises took off her bright jewelry […] and loosed her girdle and stripped off her bright garments and laid them down upon a silver-studded seat. Then by the will of the gods and destiny he lay with her.[49]”
Thus, we have seen that sex was an act that Greeks believed gave the dominant participant power and the “submissive” knowledge. The symposium was therefore the perfect breeding ground for this sort of teaching, as the drinking parties, with their discussions and sexual activities, impressed upon youths that they held power in the palm of their hand.
Hetaerai were free-speaking, free-living and educated courtesans whose role it was to entertain men as symposia, and as such were held in high regard by men. However, men sometimes showed their power and superiority at these parties in violent ways against helpless slaves and lowborn prostitutes and, on rare occasion, against hetaerai. Generally, though, hetaerai were respected and even considered psychological equals, at the very least. Homeric literature very briefly talks about sex, but prudishly.
On Grecian sex, and women, goddesses and modesty
Lastly, we will turn to the gender hierarchies that Ancient Greece was especially infamous for. Since I already described a boy’s childhood and education, I will now turn to girls’ lives. As we saw before, women were generally admired for their physique but held in contempt otherwise. For example, according to Ellen D. Reeder, parthenoi[50] were viewed as enchanting and were thus dressed “with clothing and jewelry like a doll, in a manner in which Pandora was first fashioned and then ornamented to be a bride to Epimetheus[51].”
Yet, since Pandora doomed humanity to suffer the ills of the world, she (and all women, who are likened to her) is held in near-hatred for her curiosity. Young maidens are likewise feared for possessing “extreme sexual curiosity, an almost uncontrollable spirit, and an irresistibility to men[52].”
In other words, women were condemned for their ‘wildness’, which we discussed earlier when describing the Greek concept of love. Doomed by Pandora, then, respectable women were to cast their eyes down in an expression of aidos (modesty, shame, submission) and to conceal their bodies.
It was thought that if a “husband relaxed too much, the wife would get out of control[53]” and revert to her inner animalistic compulsions. Hesiod’s Pandora in fact treats of this very fear: “[Woman] depletes man of his worldly assets and consumes him sexually, at the same time as she possesses a power over him that leaves him unable to retaliate[54].”
In other mythological tales, Medea and Circe, two sorceresses, directly inspire fear in men with their ‘wild’ magical powers that can destroy men or control their masculinity. Sirens, female sea creatures, could lead men to their deaths with their compelling song. The Amazons dared to create a female-centred social and military structure. Many other mythological women and female creatures robbed men of their power.
The tales served, then, to inspire fear in Greek men and to continually reassert their sexual and moral superiority — basically, to reduce women to subservient roles, as mere shells of themselves. Men literally had power over their lives: it was a father’s decision to let a baby girl live or to leave her in an unpopulated area to die, for girls were expensive and required a dowry[55]. Atalanta the Swift-Footed, favourite of Artemis, was such a baby that was initially left to die by a father who was disappointed not to have a boy.
From a very young age, a girl learned her place in society: spending her days in the women’s quarters, she would dedicate the rest of her days to weaving, managing the household, and childbearing[56]. They spent their leisure time in the gynaikon, the quintessential female space where they busied themselves with cosmetics and musical instruments[57]. Some girls benefited from rudimentary education, but only barely enough to get by.
It has been debated whether a woman could move freely around the polis. Current scholarship is leaning toward a positive attitude: they probably attended dramatic performances and visited family tombs. They did attend public speeches, such as the funerary oration of Perikles, and they certainly visited sanctuaries, such as the Brauron Artemis and the Sanctuary of the Nymph[58].
On the subject of religion, women played an important role within either the pantheon[59], as priestesses or during religious rituals. Euripides regards priestesses as extremely powerful in a play:
“We women play the most important part, because some prophesy the will of Loxias in the oracles of Phoibos. And at the holy site of Dodone near the Sacred Oak females convey the will of Zeus to inquirers from Greece. As for the sacred rituals for the Fates and the Nameless Goddesses, all these would not be holy if performed by men, but prosper in women’s hands. in this way women have a rightful share in the service of the Gods.[60]”
Ironically, though these goddesses and their worship seem to validate a certain elevated female role, the “removal of women from their homes to a sanctuary outside the civic center and the mandate that they abstain from sexual intercourse for the period of [festivals] seem to reinforce […] societal norms which expected women to attend to the household and to give birth to legitimate children[61].” In other words, they were inexorably locked into a lesser role and limited social life disguised into one that would validate them.
One of the most revered deities of the Greek pantheon was Aphrodite, who was not shown nude until Praxiletes’s Aphrodite of Knidos in 350BC. The Aphrodites before her were, though embodying religious ideals through fully clothes representations, sexually attractive with the “wet drapery” technique to reveal the bulge of breasts and body beneath borderline-proper fashion[62].
Even the Knidian Aphrodite exudes propriety through her nudity by holding her hand over her pubis in a pudica, or modest, pose[63]. Introduced some 300 years after the first male nude which continued to evolve in open sensuality and eroticism, the Knidian Aphrodite’s genitals are the object of special sexual scrutiny and attention. Her condition is of complete self-conscious nudity. She may very well have been caught bathing. Her entire body language translates as protective fear and vulnerability.
The result is that the intended viewers (men, clearly) are forced to experience a shameful, voyeuristic desire to see her genitals beneath her hand, translating then into erotic possibilities in his mind. Praxiletes, then, makes her [and all women’s] pubis the most desirable thing to see and to have[64].
Two other examples of the modest Aphrodite include the Venus of Medici and the Aphrodite of Melos. The Venus, found in Roman Emperor Hadrian’s villa, displays the nude goddess with the pudica gesture with one hand, and with the other she is hiding a breast. The Aphrodite of Melos does not display the pudica gesture, but true to Greek customs her lower body is modestly covered, beautiful drapery cinched around her hips.
This desire possibly stems, in addition to the fact that they are sexually subservient to men, from the fact that female arousal is elusive and cannot be gauged entirely by physical response (like erections with men): female desire and love are internally experienced. In vase paintings, female desire is shown through eye contact, not genitalia. A mutual gaze will thus emphasize attraction between sensual or sexual partners, e.g. a Shuvalov vase shows a naked couple where the young woman is climbing onto the lap of a young aroused man, her arms encircling his neck, their foreheads touching, and their eyes locked together in a clearly intimate, romantic moment[65]. Her initiative (mounting him) demonstrates her sexual interest. The chasm between male and female desire is also reflected in the Greek definitions of male and female chastity: “Masculine chastity derives from self-control, the opposite of hybris, feminine chastity from dutifulness and obedience[66].”
Aristotle explains that “control, for the man, comes from within; for the woman, since she cannot control herself, it must be exerted from the outside[67].” The society imposed modesty on them so as not to disrupt its carefully controlled cell. “The representation of pudicated women therewith allowed for the diversification of the [male] population into power hierarchies[68]” in which the symposia were the sites wherein fraternal bonding rituals directed their energies into maintaining male supremacy.
A girl’s entire self-perception was, then, molded from “manual and behavioural instruction in the home” and mythological tales reinforced through festival observation and thus, at her wedding day, her formal entry into adulthood, she abandoned her former life and faced a terrifying new one with a new family and the terror of childbirth[69].
Yet women did not necessarily live dull, weak lives: in Euripides’s Trojan Women, Andromache “knew when my will must have its way, knew also to give way to him in turn[70].” Homer and Pindar knew homophrosyne, a union of hearts and minds[71].
Still, being the penetrated partner, a woman was always considered a passive being. Teiresias, a mythical seer who had spent some years as a woman, claimed that “a woman derived nine times the pleasure from sexual intercourse that a man did[72]”, which further contributed to validating the belief that women’s ‘wildness’ needed to be controlled.
The proof of women’s progeny was thought inconclusive: Athena famously states in the Eumenides that “the father is the true parent and the woman is only the nurse of the seed[73]”.
Aristotle also believed that “the deliberative faculty in the soul [of a woman] is present, but ineffective[74]” and therefore that a woman’s lust was all-pervasive and should be restrained by the husband. An unconstrained woman “would wreak colossal damage on society”; take for example Pandora who, with the gift of words by Hermes, seduced and destroyed with the unleashed forcefulness of her speech.
The pervasive male anxiety that women could at any time overthrow society is not unfounded. It is said that women were enfranchised when they voted in favour of the patronage of Athena instead of Poseidon. Afterwards, the men punished their sexual favouritism by taking away their rights to citizenship and to give their name to their offspring[75].
On Grecian sex, conlusion
Thus, we have seen that the genderism regarding women has a long history with many rules that crippled their freedom and their right to equality. Mythology encouraged men to constrain them lest their wild ways overtake them.
Religion helped restrain them, as did even the representations of the goddess of love herself whose body was ever modestly covered for centuries and even in nude form, in contrast to the male representations whose bodies ranged in nude sensuality and eroticism. We also touched on the differences between female and male desire and the so-called need for women to be controlled by an outward source i.e. a man. We finished with women’s shaky self-perceptions caused by the all-encompassing fear of women’s true natures.
Conclusion
In summary, we looked at the concept of love as understood by Ancient Greeks whose souls, earthbound after a visit to the gods, forever longed for another glimpse of divine beauty to staunch their eternal thirst.
Sex is closely linked with this concept of beauty-love; moreover, sex was a method through which knowledge was disseminated.
Gender was a considerable element in how relationships played out. With a focus on women, we saw that the female gender was considered to be too wild to be unleashed; indeed, if left unrestrained, it was feared that they would wreak chaos upon the world as the mythological first woman Pandora did.
As an aside, I found it largely ironic that, though hetaerai were women, they held more power over men and over society than wives did as respectable (restrained) women.
Hetaerai educated themselves to the same level as men, therefore they could have easily overthrown the oligarchy and patriarchy if they had so wished. What exactly restrained them from plotting a secret revolution? Or was the mutilation of the Athenian herms in the summer of 415BC and attempt at just such a thing?
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McClure, Laura. Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Plato, and Cobb William S.. The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues. New York: SUNY Press, 1993.
Raaflaub, Kurt A., and Wees Hans Van. A Companion to Archaic Greece. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Donaldson, Sir James. Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and Among the Early Christians. Chestnut Hill: Adamant Media Corporation.
Hall, Jonathan M.. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479 BC. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.
Toscano, Margaret. “Female Desire on Erotic Greek Vases”. Female Mormon Housewives. October 26th, 2009 <http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=1848>.
Manifold, Nadia. “The Complete Athenian Woman: Portrayal of Women Throughout Greece”. Hollins University. October 26th, 2009 <http://www1.hollins.edu/faculty/saloweyca/Athenian%20Woman/Nadia%20Manifold/Portrayal%20of%20Women%20Throughout%20Greece.htm>.
Koloski-Ostrow, Ann Olga, and Lyons Claire C.. Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Reeder, Ellen D.. Pandora: Women in Classical Greece. Baltimore: The Walters Arts Gallery in association with Princeton University Press, 1995.
Verstraete, Beert. “New Pedagogy on Ancient Pederasty.” The Gay & Lesbian Review. Volume XI, Number 3 (May-June 2004), pp.13–14.
Bremmer, Jan. From Sappho to de Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Thayers, Bill. “Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite”. November 23rd, 2009 <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Homerica/Hymns/5*.html>.
Notes
1 Whitmarsh, Tim. Ancient Greek literature. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004, p.19.
2 Donaldson, Sir James. Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and Among the Early Christians. Chestnut Hill: Adamant Media Corporation, p.3.
3 Phaedrus also appears in Plato’s Symposium, which deals with the more sexual aspect of life in Greece and the symposium, more specifically.
4 Plato, and Cobb William S.. The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues. New York: SUNY Press, 1993, p.11.
5 Plato, and Cobb, p.15.
6 Plato, and Cobb, p.17.
7 Plato, and Cobb, p.21.
8 Homer wrote about this feeling: “Mortals call him fluttering love, But the immortals call him winged one, Because the growing of wings is a necessity to him.” (Plato, and Cobb, p.39)
9 Plato, and Cobb, p.26.
10 Donaldson, p.7.
11 Not only exquisite in form, Phryne was also a priestess and prophetess of Aphrodite’s cult. It would have been sacrilege to let such beauty be deformed in any way, much less killed. (Donaldson, p.7)
12 He and Hesiod saw woman as a curse sprung from Pandora — with the beauty and charm of a goddess but the manners and morals of a bitch. (Manifold, Nadia. “The Complete Athenian Woman: Portrayal of Women Throughout Greece”. Hollins University. October 26th, 2009, <http://www1.hollins.edu/faculty/saloweyca/Athenian%20Woman/Nadia%20Manifold/Portrayal%20of%20Women%20Throughout%20Greece.htm>)
13 Donaldson, p.9.
14 Donaldson, p.9.
15 Donaldson, p.11.
16 Donaldson, p.14.
17 Donaldson, p.16.
18 Raaflaub, Kurt A., and Wees Hans Van. A Companion to Archaic Greece. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, p.485.
19 Donaldson, p.43.
20 Donaldson, p.43.
21 Donaldson, pp.44–46.
22 Donaldson, p.59.
23 McClure, Laura. Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus. New York: Routledge, 2003, p.80. 24 Keuls, Eva C.. The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, p.164. 25 Keuls, p.173.
26 Keuls, p.283.
27 Raaflaub, p.518.
28 It was believed that the semel disseminated knowledge throughout the male population, which also probably explains the talk of “evil” women who should not be privy to this knowledge but whom they cannot live without.
29 Feldman, Martha, and Gordon Bonnie. The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2006, p.35
30 McClure, p.80.
31 Reeder, Ellen D.. Pandora: Women in Classical Greece. Baltimore: The Walters Arts Gallery in association with Princeton University Press, 1995, p.98
32 Keuls, p.295.
33 Keuls, p.281.
34 Verstraete, Beert. “New Pedagogy on Ancient Pederasty.” The Gay & Lesbian Review. Volume XI, Number 3 (May-June 2004), p.13. 35 Bremmer, Jan. From Sappho to de Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1991, p.8.
36 Bremmer, p.9
37 Raaflaub, p.519.
38 Toscano, Margaret. “Female Desire on Erotic Greek Vases”. Female Mormon Housewives. October 26th, 2009 <http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=1848>
39 Keuls, p.153.
40 Keuls, p.183.
41 Keuls, p.185.
42 Keuls, p.182.
43 Keuls, p.170.
44 Toscano.
45 Feldman, and Gordon, p.33.
46 Raaflaub, p.519.
47 McClure, pp.79–80.
48 McClure, p.83.
49 Thayers, Bill. “Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite”. November 23rd, 2009 <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Homerica/Hymns/5*.html>.
50 physically mature but unmarried adolescent girls
51 Manifold.
52 Manifold.
53 Reeder, p.15.
54 Reeder, p.16.
55 Reeder, p.20.
56 A girl was deemed marriageable as soon as she was physically mature, around ages 13 to 15. 57 Reeder, p.20.
58 Reeder, p.21.
59 Some of the most beautiful and powerful deities were in fact women as were not at all disdained by mortal men. 60 Manifold.
61 Hall, Jonathan M.. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479 BC. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p.201. 62 Koloski-Ostrow, Ann Olga, and Lyons Claire C.. Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology.
New York: Routledge, 1997, p.203.
63 Koloski-Ostrow, and Lyons p.197.
64 Koloski-Ostrow, and Lyons p.208.
65 Toscano.
66 Koloski-Ostrow, and Lyons p.210.
67 Koloski-Ostrow, and Lyons p.210.
68 Koloski-Ostrow, and Lyons p.212.
69 Reeder, p.22.
70 Reeder, p.23.
71 Reeder, p.23.
72 Reeder, p.25.
73 Reeder, p.25.
74 Reeder, p.25.
75 Reeder, p.26.
