Women In Athenian Law And Life

This book provides a comprehensive account of the Athenians' conception of women during the classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Though nothing remains that represents the authentic voice of the women themselves, there is a wealth of evidence showing how men sought to define women. By working through a range of material, from the provisions of Athenian law through to the representations of tragedy and comedy, the author builds up, in the manner of an anthropological ethnography, a coherent and integrated picture of the Athenians' notion of `woman'.

This book provides a comprehensive account of the Athenians' conception of women during the classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Though nothing remains that represents the authentic voice of the women themselves, there is a wealth of evidence showing how men sought to define women. By working through a range of material, from the provisions of Athenian law through to the representations of tragedy and comedy, the author builds up, in the manner of an anthropological ethnography, a coherent and integrated picture of the Athenians' notion of `woman'.

Largely excluded from any public role, the women of ancient Greece nonetheless appear in various guises in the art and writing of the period, and in legal documents. These representations, in Sue Blundell's analysis, reveal a great deal about women's day-to-day experience as well as their legal and economic position - and how they were regarded by men.

Konstantinos Kapparis challenges the traditional view that free women, citizen and metic, were excluded from the Athenian legal system. Looking at existing fragmentary evidence largely from speeches, Kapparis reveals that it unambiguously suggests that free women were far from invisible in the legal system and the life of the polis. In the first part of the book Kapparis discusses the actual cases which included women as litigants, and the second part interprets these cases against the legal, social, economic and cultural background of classical Athens. In doing so he explores how factors such as gender, religion, women's empowerment and the rise of the Attic hetaira as a cultural icon intersected with these cases and ultimately influenced the construction of the speeches.

Athenian Law and Society focuses upon the intersection of law and society in classical Athens, in relation to topics like politics, class, ability, masculinity, femininity, gender studies, economics, citizenship, slavery, crime, and violence. The book explores the circumstances and broader context which led to the establishment of the laws of Athens, and how these laws influenced the lives and action of Athenian citizens, by examining a wide range of sources from classical and late antique history and literature. Kapparis also explores later literature on Athenian law from the Renaissance up to the 20th and 21st centuries, examining the long-lasting impact of the world’s first democracy. Athenian Law and Society is a study of the intersection between law and society in classical Athens that has a wide range of applications to study of the Athenian polis, as well as law, democracy, and politics in both classical and more modern settings.

Based on a sophisticated reading of legal evidence, this book offers a balanced assessment of the status of women in classical Greece. Raphael Sealey analyzes the rights of women in marriage, in the control of property, and in questions of inheritance. He advances the theory that the legal disabilities of Greek women occurred because they were prohibited from bearing arms. Sealey demonstrates that, with some local differences, there was a general uniformity in the legal treatment of women in the Greek cities. For Athens, the law of the family has been preserved in some detail in the scrupulous records of speeches delivered in lawsuits. These records show that Athenian women could testify, own property, and be tried for crime, but a male guardian had to administer their property and represent them at law. Gortyn allowed relatively more independence to the female than did Athens, and in Sparta, although women were allowed to have more than one husband, the laws were similar to those of Athens. Sealey's subsequent comparison of the law of these cities with Roman law throws into relief the common concepts and aims of Greek law of the family. Originally published in 1990. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This collection of essays explores the lives and roles of women in antiquity. A recurring theme is the relationship between private and public, and many of the essays find that women's public roles develop as a result of their private lives, specifically their family relationships. Essays on Hellenistic queens and Spartan and Roman women document how women exerted political power--usually, but not always, through their relationship to male leaders--and show how political upheaval created opportunities for them to exercise powers previously reserved for men. Essays on the writings of Sappho and Nossis focus on the interaction between women's public and private discourses. The collection also includes discussion of Athenian and Roman marriage and the intrusion of the state into the sexual lives of Greek, Roman, and Jewish women as well as an investigation of scientific opinion about female physiology. The contributors are Sarah B. Pomeroy, Jane McIntosh Snyder, Marilyn M. Skinner, Cynthia B. Patterson, Ann Ellis Hanson, Lesley Dean-Jones, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Mary Taliaferro Boatwright, and Shaye J.D. Cohen.