Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:13:33.701Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Most Silent Women of Greece and Rome: Rural Labour and Women's Life in the Ancient World (I)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Walter Schidel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Over the last twenty years, the study of the women of the Greek and Roman world has experienced a boom that, if it is judged by the sheer output of relevant publications, dwarfs any other recent innovations and redirections in the field of ancient history. In view of the ongoing proliferation of studies on this topic, I can only hope that my present paper not only adds to the bulk but also a little to the stock (to heed Laurence Sterne's lament over the historian's business) in that it seeks to redress an imbalance that informs most previous research on women's life in classical antiquity. In short, the large majority of studies in this particular field concentrate on urban environments and, as a consequence, give undue prominence to a certain segment, actually a minority group in terms of quantity, of ancient society. Needless to say, however, that, given the nature of our sources, anything else than this biased focus would have been a big surprise and probably impossible to achieve. Even so, the busy study of those layers of ancient society that produced, or caught the eye of, the authors of Greek and Roman literature, inscriptions, papyri, and coinlegends, can be fully vindicated only when the more shadowy and obscure regions of ancient history are not allowed to be passed over in complete silence. The contribution of women to ancient agriculture is an issue that falls squarely within that latter, underprivileged category of subjects. In her introduction to a collection of essays on new methodological approaches to the study of women in antiquity, Marilyn Skinner pointed out that ‘Real women, like other muted groups, are not to be found so much in the explicit text of the historical record as in its gaps and silences – a circumstance that requires the application of research methods based largely upon controlled inference’

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , October 1995 , pp. 202 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

2. Skinner, M., ‘Rescuing Creusa: New Methodological Approaches to Women in Antiquity’, in Skinner, M. (ed.), Rescuing Creusa: New Methodological Approaches to Women in Antiquity = Helios 13, 2 (1987), 3Google Scholar.

3. Joshel, S., Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome. A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman and London, 1992), pp. 3–24Google Scholar.

4. Summarized by Golden, M., ‘The Uses of Cross-Cultural Comparison in Ancient Social History’, EMC 36 (1992), 315Google Scholar, following Skocpol, T. and Somers, M., ‘The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry’, CSSH 22 (1980), 174–97Google Scholar.

5. Golden, , op. cit., 316f., 319, 321 fGoogle Scholar.

6. There would be little point in restating my complaint about scholarly indifference towards this subject that I expressed some years ago (see above, n. 1). Suffice it to add that while Isager, S. and Skydsgaard, J. E., Ancient Greek Agriculture. An Introduction (London and New York, 1992CrossRefGoogle Scholar) do not seem to consider women's work anywhere in the text, Burford, A., Land and Labor in the Greek World (Baltimore and London, 1993) contents herself with passing remarks on only two relevant sourcesGoogle Scholar.

7. On this figure, cf. Livi-Bacci, M., A Concise History of World Population (Cambridge MA and London, 1992), p. 31Google Scholar.

8. Goody, J., Production and Reproduction. A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain (Cambridge, 1976), p. 35Google Scholar. See also below, at notes 44–7.

9. Boserup, E., Women's Role in Economic Development (London, 1970), pp. 27, 31Google Scholar.

10. Williamson, N. E., Sons or Daughters. A Cross-Cultural Survey of Parental Preferences (Beverly Hills and London, 1976), pp. 20 fGoogle Scholar.

11. On the nexus between the sexual division of labour and sex-differentials in child survival in India, see Miller, B. D., The Endangered Sex. Neglect of Female Children in Rural North India (Ithaca and London, 1981), pp. 107–32Google Scholar, with Bardhan, P., ‘Little Girls and Death in India’, Economic and Political Weekly 17 (1982), 1448–50Google Scholar; see also Rosenzweig, M. R. and Schultz, T. P., ‘Market Opportunities, Genetic Endowments and Intra-Family Distribution of Resources: Child Survival in Rural India’, American Economic Review 72 (1982), 803Google Scholar–15; Kishor, S., ‘”May God Give Sons to All”. Gender and Child Mortality in India’, American Sociological Review 58 (1993), 247–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Pakistan, see Miller, B. D., ‘Daughter Neglect, Women's Work, and Marriage: Pakistan and Bangladesh Compared’, Medical Anthropology 8 (1984), 120CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Sathar, Z. A., ‘Sex Differentials in Mortality: A Corollary of Son Preference?', Pakistan Development Review 26 (1987), 557Google ScholarPubMed. For China, cf. Lee, B.J., ‘Female Infanticide in China’, Historical Reflections 8, 3 (1981), 175Google Scholar. It should be heeded, however, that the conventional wisdom that in certain societies girls are consistently less nourished than their brothers is increasingly challenged: see, e.g., Pettigrew, J., ‘Child Neglect in Rural Punjabi Families’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies 17 (1986), 63–85Google Scholar; Gupta, M. Das, ‘Selective Discrimination against Female Children in Rural Punjab, India’, Population and Development Review 13 (1987), 88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chaudhary, R. H., ‘Dietary Adequacy and Sex Bias: Pre-School Children in Rural Bangladesh’, Social Action 37 (1987), 110Google Scholar–16 (stresses differences in child care time and health care: 118-20); Harriss, B., ‘Differential Female Mortality and Health Care in South Asia’, Journal of Social Studies (Dhaka) 44 (1989), 22Google Scholar; Basau, A. M., ‘How Pervasive Are Sex Differentials in Childhood Nutritional Levels in South Asia?', Social Biology 40 (1993), 25–37Google Scholar. In this context, it is interesting to note that in the very few historical societies with exhibited marked daughter preference, women were the main economic producers: Williamson, op. cit., p. 105.

12. This will be treated in greater detail in a forthcoming monograph by Peter Garnsey, and in my own forthcoming work on the comparative socioecology of infanticide in the Graeco-Roman world.

13. Cf. Chen, L. C., ‘Child Survival: Levels, Trends, and Determinants’, in Bulatao, R. A. and Lee, R. D. (eds.), Determinants of Fertility in Developing Countries, I: Supply and Demand for Children (New York, London, 1983), p. 212Google Scholar; Nag, M., ‘The Impact of Sociocultural Factors on Breastfeeding and Sexual Behavior’, op. cit, p. 171 (on Malaysia and Thailand)Google Scholar.

14. Wickert-Micknat, G., Die Frau (Archaeologia Homerica III R) (Göttingen 1982), pp. 38–50Google Scholar.

15. [Aristot, .] Oik. 1.1344 a 3–6Google Scholar. On this biological reasoning, see Said, S., ‘Féminin, femme et femelle dans les grands traités biologiques d'Aristote', in Levy, E. (ed.), La femme dans les sociétés antiques. Actes des colloques de Strasbourg (mai 1980 et mars 1981) (Strasbourg 1983), pp. 93–123Google Scholar.

16. Hierocles, , in Stob. Flor. 3.696fGoogle Scholar. (ed. Hense).

17. Xen, .Oik. 7.30; cfGoogle Scholar. Vilatte, S., ‘La femme, l'esclave, le cheval et le chien: les emblèmes du kalòs kagathós Ischomaque', DHA 12 (1986), 271–94Google Scholar.

18. See, e.g., ILS 8402: ‘Hie sita est Amymone Marci optima et pulcherrima lanifica pia pudica frugi casta domiseda.’ Cf. Liv. 1.57.6–9. A rare indication that the male creators of this schematic tradition were well aware of the stereotyped character of such formulas and in fact even deliberately preferred them to more individual statements is brought out by a fragment of an elaborate funeral inscription from the age of Augustus: ILS 8394, translated by Clark, G., ‘Roman Women’, G&R 28 (1981), 210 CfGoogle Scholar. also Hesberg-Tonn, B. von, Coniunx Carissima. Untersuchungen zum Normcharakter im Erscheinungsbild der römischen Frau (Stuttgart, 1983Google Scholar). On the ‘domestic complex’ of Roman women, see J. Maurin, ‘Labor Matronalis: aspects du travail féminin à Rome’, in Levy, , op. cit., pp. 139–54, and cfGoogle Scholar. in general Finley, M.I., ‘The Silent Women of Rome’, in Aspects of Antiquity. Discoveries and Controversies (Harmondsworth, 2 1977), pp. 124–36Google Scholar.

19. Campbell, J. K., Honour, Family and Patronage. A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community (Oxford, 1964), p. 289Google Scholar.

20. Quoted by Segalen, M., Love and Power in the Peasant Family. Rural France in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1983), p. 107Google Scholar.

21. Dubisch, J., ‘Culture Enters Through the Kitchen: Women, Food, and Social Boundaries in Rural Greece’, in ead. (ed.), Gender and Power in Rural Greece (Princeton, 1986), p. 200Google Scholar. Thus, women might preferably be given agricultural work that can be done near the house rather than out in the fields: Friedl, E., ‘The Position of Women: Appearance and Reality’, in Dubisch, (ed.), op. cit, p. 49 (on Vasilika)Google Scholar.

22. This has already been pointed out in several recent studies, above all by Richter, D. C., ‘The Position of Women in Classical Athens’, CJ 67 (1971), 1–8Google Scholar; Jameson, M. H., ‘Agriculture and Slavery in Classical Athens’, CJ 73 (1977/1978), 137 f.Google Scholar; Cohen, D., ‘Seclusion, Separation, and the Status of Women in Classical Athens’, G&R 36 (1989), 3–15Google Scholar (on which cf. Golden, , op. cit., 317–321Google Scholar); Sallares, R., The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (London, 1991), p. 83Google Scholar.

23. Kitteringham, J., ‘Country Working Girls in Nineteenth-Century England’, in Samuel, R. (ed.), Village Life and Labour (London, 1975), p. 127Google Scholar.

24. Garnsey, P. and Sailer, R., The Roman Empire. Economy, Society and Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), p. 43Google Scholar.

25. What might be taken as authoritative estimates are provided by Hopkins, K., ‘Economic Growth and Towns in Classical Antiquity’, in Abrams, P. and Wrigley, E. A. (eds.), Towns in Societies (Cambridge, 1978), 76Google Scholar; idem, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1978), p. 69 hGoogle Scholar; Pleket, H. W., ‘Wirtschaft’, in Vittinghoff, F. (ed.), Europäische Wirlschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in der römischen Kaiserzeil (Stuttgart, 1990), p. 71Google Scholar. For comparative data from better-documented societies, see, e.g., White, L. Jr., ‘The Expansion of Technology 500–1500', in Cipolla, C. M. (ed.), The Fontana Economic History of Europe 1 (Glasgow, 1972), pp. 144 f.Google Scholar; Postan, M. M., Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (Cambridge, 1973), p. 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. Susan Treggiari was the first to draw attention to the respective evidence in a number of articles (e.g., ‘Jobs for Women’, AJAH 1 [1976], 76–104Google Scholar; ‘Lower Class Women in the Roman Economy’, Florilegium 1 [1979], 65–86Google Scholar). The most comprehensive surveys are now Kampen, N., Image and Status. Roman Working Women in Ostia (Berlin, 1981Google Scholar); Günther, R., Frauenarbeit-Frauenbindung. Untersuchungen zu unfreien undfreigelassenen Frauen in den stadtrömischen Inschriften (Munich, 1987)Google Scholar; Eichenauer, M., Untersuchungen zurArbeitswelt der Frau in der römischen Antike (Frankfurt, 1988Google Scholar);Evans, J. K., War, Women and Children in Ancient Rome (London and New York, 1991), pp. 101–65Google Scholar; and Joshel, op. cit.

27. Finley, M. I., ‘Slavery’, The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 14 (New York, 1968), pp. 307Google Scholar–13; Hopkins, K., Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 99–101Google Scholar; Patterson, O., Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge MA and London, 1982), p. 353Google Scholar.

28. Let me just note in passing that I am well aware of the existence of cultures where women's work accounts for a very large proportion of the entire agricultural production, such as the traditional societies of tropical Africa or South-East Asia. In contemporary Africa, for instance, about three quarters of all rural work is done by women: Bradley, H., Men's Work, Women's Work. A Sociological History of the Sexual Division of Labour in Employment (Cambridge, 1988), p. 75. It will be clear, however, that the experience of such cultures allows no meaningful comparisons with the situation in pre-modern EuropeGoogle Scholar.

29. E.g., Ehrenberg, M., Women in Prehistory (Norman and London, 1989), pp. 84Google Scholar f. On the sexual division of labour in hunter-gatherer societies, cf. ibid. pp. 51–9, or Bradley, H., op. cit., pp. 27–32Google Scholar.

30. Middle Ages: Power, E., Medieval Women (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 71Google Scholar–5; Epperlein, E., ‘Bäuerliche Arbeitsdarstellungen auf mittelalterlichen Bildzeugnissen’, JWG (1976) 1, 196–200Google Scholar; Shahar, S., The Fourth Estate. A History of Women in the Middle Ages (London, 1983), pp. 240CrossRefGoogle Scholar–2; Herlihy, D., Opera Muliebria. Women and Work in Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 26Google Scholar f, 50–5; early modern Europe: Wunder, H., ‘Die Stellung der Frau im Arbeitsleben und in der Gesellschaft des 15–18. Jahrhunderts. Eine Skizze’, Geschichtsdidaktik 6 (1981), 244Google Scholar; nineteenth century: Kitteringham, op. cit., pp. 73–138; Morgan, D. H., Harvesters and Harvesting 1840–1900. A Study of the Rural Proletariat (London and Canberra, 1982), pp. 21,46, 98,110Google Scholar; Segalen, , op. cit, pp. 78–111Google Scholar; and the contributions to Ethnologia Scandinavica (1975), 5–72.

31. Bennett, J. M., Women in the Medieval English Countryside. Gender and Household in Brigstock Before the Plague (New York and Oxford, 1987), pp. 116fGoogle Scholar.

32. Hudson, P. and Lee, W. R., ‘Women's Work and the Family Economy in Historical Perspective’, in iid. (eds.), Women's Work and the Family Economy in Historical Perspective (Manchester and New York, 1990), p. 7Google Scholar.

33. Matthaei, J. A., An Economic History of Women in America (New York and Brighton, 1982), pp. 87Google Scholarf.;Jones, J., Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow. Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present (New York, 1985), pp. 12Google Scholar, 15–18; White, D. G., Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York and London, 1985), pp. 67Google Scholar, 120–2; Fox-Genovese, E., Within the Plantation Household. Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill and London, 1988), pp. 172–7Google Scholar; Bush, B., Slave Women in Caribbean Society 1650–1838 (London, 1990), pp. 33–46Google Scholar.

34. Ibid., p. 78, 87; Kitteringham, op. cit., pp. 127f.; Inhetveen, H., ‘Von der ‘Hausmutter’ zur ‘mithelfenden Familienangehörigen’. Zur Stellung der Frau in Agrartheorien', in Bedal, K. and Heidrich, H. (eds.), Freilichtmuseum und Sozialgeschichte (Bad Winsheim, 1986), pp. 109–21Google Scholar.

35. Antoun, R. T., ‘On the Modesty Code of Women in Arab Muslim Villages: A Study in the Accommodation of Tradition’, American Anthropologist 70 (1968), 682CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Fitton-Brown, A. D., ‘The Contribution of Women to Ancient Greek Agriculture’, LCM 9 (1984), 71Google Scholar.

37. Cf. Inhetveen, H. and Blasche, M., ‘Women in the Smallholder Economy’, in Shanin, T. (ed.), Peasants and Peasant Societies (Oxford, 2 1987), pp. 38–44Google Scholar.

38. Wood, E. N., Peasant-Citizen and Slave. The Foundations of Athenian Democracy (London and New York, 1988), pp. 51–80,173–80Google Scholar.

39. Gallant, T. W., Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece. Reconstructing the Domestic Economy (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 30–3Google Scholar; cf. McKeown, N., The Slave Mode of Production in Classical Athens: A Very Peculiar Institution (Doctoral Thesis Cambridge University, 1991), pp. 51–3Google Scholar.

40. For a global perspective of this basic fact, see Murdock, G. P. and Provost, C., ‘Factors in the Division of Labor by Sex: A Cross-Cultural Analysis’, Ethnology 12 (1973), 207 Table 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41. This is occasionally also corroborated by the archaeological evidence: thus, for instance, the fact that the votive offerings found in the sanctuary of Demeter in Bitalemi (Sicily) – many or most of which would have been deposited by women (especially during the Thesmophoria, an exclusively female festivity) – are dominated by thousands of weaving weights leaves little doubt about the importance of textile production in women's everyday life: Kron, U., ‘Frauenfeste in Demeterheiligtümern: Das Thesmophorion von Bitalemi. Eine archäologische Fallstudie’, Archäologischer Anzeiger 1992,611–50, esp. 630 fGoogle Scholar. (I owe this reference to Sanne Houby-Nielsen). Although agricultural implements are not entirely absent from this material, they doubtless remain exceptional; see below, at n. 56.

42. Gallant, , op. cit, pp. 11–33, 60–112Google Scholar.

43. Recently stressed by Foxhall, L., ‘Farming and Fighting in Ancient Greece’, in Rich, J. and Shipley, G. (eds.), War and Society in the Greek World (London and New York, 1993), pp. 134–45Google Scholar. Similar temporary drains on the male agricultural workforce in Norway, for example, brought about by extended periods of absence of the men who went fishing, prompted their wives to take on men's work: Pedersen, R., ‘Die Arbeitsteilung zwischen Frauen und Männern in einem marginalen Ackerbaugebiet – Das Beispiel Norwegen’, Ethnologia Scandinavica (1975), 43Google Scholar.

44. Boserup, , op. cit., pp. 16–23Google Scholar; Bradley, H., op. cit., p. 76Google Scholar; Ehrenberg, , op. cit., pp. 81, 103 fGoogle Scholar.

45. See Ember, C. R., ‘The Relative Decline in Women's Contribution to Agriculture with Intensification’, American Anthropologist 85 (1983), 286CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bradley, H., op. cit., p. 81Google Scholar; Horn, . Od. 18.366ffGoogle Scholar.

46. Bradley, H., op. cit., pp. 79–81Google Scholar; Shahar, , op. cit., p. 242Google Scholar.

47. Plin, . NH 18.178Google Scholar; Kolendo, J., L'agricoltura nell'Italia romana (Rome, 1980), p. 85Google Scholar; Spurr, M. S., Arable Cultivation in Roman Italy c.200 B.C.-c.A.D. 100 (London, 1986), p. 40. See belowGoogle Scholar.

48. Epperlein, , op. cit., 200Google Scholar; Roberts, M., ‘Sickles and Scythes: Women's Work and Men's Work at Harvest Time’, History Workshop 7 (1979), 3–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bradley, H., op. cit., pp. 85 fGoogle Scholar.

49. See, e.g., Hoejroup, O., ‘Die Arbeitsteilung zwischen Männern und Frauen in der bäuerlichen Kultur Dänemarks’, Ethnologia Scandinavica (1975), 29Google Scholar; Wunder, , op. cit, 244Google Scholar.

50. For this aspect, see Mitterauer, M., ‘Geschlechtsspezifische Arbeitsteilung und Geschlechterrollen in ländlichen Gesellschaften Mitteleuropas’, in Martin, J. and Zoepffel, R. (eds.), Aufgaben, Rollen und Räume von Frau und Mann, Teilband 2 (Munich, 1989), pp. 863 fGoogle Scholar. Note that according to Aristotle, (Pol. 1.5.1254b 25–30), male citizens are erect while (natural) slaves are notGoogle Scholar.

51. Summarized by Lumsden, C. J. and Wilson, E. O., Genes, Mind, and Culture. The Coevolutionary Process (Cambridge MA and London, 1981), p. 247 fig. 6.2Google Scholar.

52. Quoted by Bush, , op. cit., p. 15Google Scholar. See, in general, Patterson, op. cit., passim, on the alienation and dishonouring of slaves throughout world history. There are also indications of a similar ‘masculinization’ of women working in the fields in slave-less societies: see, for instance, the two descriptions quoted by Segalen, , op. cit., pp. 106 fGoogle Scholar. (p. 106 on women in Brittany ‘who are driven by necessity to the fields and who, side by side with men, or alone in their furrows, valiantly tackle their job; they are ruddy-skinned, with calloused hands, and go home in the evenings with their shoulders bowed and their steps heavy, having manfully accomplished the daily task’; the other account has already been quoted in the text, at n. 20).

53. On agricultural wage-labour of Roman peasants, see now Scheidel, W., Grundpacht und Lohnarbeit in der Landwirtschaft des römischen Italien (Frankfurt am Main, 1994), pp. 160–6Google Scholar.

54. Osborne, R., Classical Landscape with Figures. An Ancient Greek City and its Countryside (London, 1987), p. 70Google Scholar; cf. Silverman, S. F., ‘Agricultural Organization, Social Structure, and Values in Italy: Amoral Familism Reconsidered’, American Anthropologist 70 (1968), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.