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The Philosophic Notion of Women in Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Anne Geddes
Anne Geddes*
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Extract

Aristotle said that the association between male and female was the most natural form of association and he treated it as the first of the elementary units of society. Like many of Aristotle’s confident assertions this one looks unimportant, though true; but it deserves some attention. The association between male and female might seem to have a timeless reference. We might think that we know exactly what we mean by the words, and that Aristotle could have thought no differently. In fact there are many possible relationships between males and females and the ancient world was well aware of it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 9 , 1975 , pp. 35 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1975

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References

1 Oeconomica 1343 b 8–9. (References to Aristotle denote the pages, columns and lines of the Berlin edition. References and quotes from other authors are taken from the Oxford Classical Texts unless it is stated otherwise.)

2 Politico 1252 a 24 ff.

3 1ix 122.

4 Arthur, Marylin B. comments: ‘Clearly, the whole question still awaits analysis by a scholar who is free, not only of Victorian taste, but of simple prejudice’ (‘Early Greece: The Origins of the Western Attitude toward Women’, Arethusa 6 [1973], 53).Google Scholar

5 Richter, Donald C. ‘The Position of Women in Classical Athens’, Classical Journal 67 (1971), 5.Google Scholar

6 Kitto, H.D.F.The Greeks (Harmondsworth, 1951), p. 234.Google Scholar

7 In addition to Richter and Kitto, referred to above, see Gomme, A.W. ‘The Position of Women in Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.’, Classical Philology 20 (1925), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted in his Essays in Greek History and Literature [Oxford, 1937], pp. 89–115).

8 de Ste Croix, G.E.M. in an article entitled ‘Some Observations on the Property Rights of Athenian Women’, Classical Review 20 (1970), 273–8, considers what real control women had over any property that was nominally theirs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Harrison, A.R.W.The Law of Athens, Vol. ii (Oxford, 1971), p. 84,Google Scholar says: ‘An Athenian woman, on the other hand, remained under tutelage all her life under the rules set out in the section on guardianship (Vol. i, pp. 108 if.).’

10 See especially Engels, FrederickThe Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (New York, 1964), pp. 54–60Google Scholar and de Beauvoir, SimoneThe Second Sex (translated by Parshley, H.M.) (London, 1972), pp. 106–15.Google Scholar

11 See especially Slater, Philip E. ‘The Greek Family in History and Myth’, Arethusa 7 (1974), 9–44.Google Scholar

12 Republic 454 d 7–456 d 2, cf. Laws 804 el ff.

13 ibid. 563 b 7–9.

14 Timaeus 42 b 5–c 1, 76 d 8–e 1, 90 e 6–91 a 1.

15 Politica 1260 a 25–31, 1264 a 40–b 6.

16 ibid. 1259 b 28–38.

17 ibid. 1254 b 13–14.

18 ibid. 1259 a 1–3.

19 ibid. 1260 a 13.

20 Etilica Nicomachea 1157 a 36, 1158 b 1–28.

21 Ancient attitudes to hysteria are discussed by Veith, IlzaHysteria: The History of a Disease (Chicago, 1965), especially chapter 2.Google Scholar

22 Timaeus 91 b 7–d 5.

23 Fragment 275 (Merkelbach and West).

24 Taylor, Gordon RattrayThe Angel Makers (Kingswood, 1958).Google Scholar

25 De Generatkme Animalium 775 a 14–16.

26 ibid. 765 b 8 ff.

27 ibid. 766 a 16–24.

28 Timaeus 50 c 7–51 b 6.

29 Eumenides 657–66.

30 De Generatione Animalium 763 b 30–764 a 1.

31 Needham, JosephA History of Embryology (Cambridge, 1959),Google Scholar discusses ancient theories of embryology in chapter 1.

32 Aristotle’s theory of conception is best described in De Generatione Animalium, particularly 729 a 34–739 b 35.

33 See Harrison, A.R.W.The Law of Athens, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 143–6.Google Scholar

34 See Needham, JosephA History of Embryology, pp. 43–6.Google Scholar

35 Hesiod, Theog. 116 ff.Google Scholar