Posted By admin on August 19, 2009

Greco Roman

What were the social divisions, gender relationships, and inequalities in the Greco-Roman world?

the only thing i got was, it was a patriarchal society, they had a hierarchy. Women were second class citizens, lower than men.

HELP!

Both Greek and Roman society were very hierarchical.

In ancient Athens, all free citizen men had the right to participate in governemtn, but in practice it tended to be men from the upper class families who dominated the political scene. Women of the citizen class were considered to be citizens, but they had limited rights and did not participate in political life (whether any of them wanted to we do not know). Women did participate in religious life and fesitvals. Respectable women were epxected to spend their time spinning and weaving and supervising the work of the slaves, and they did n ot mix socially with men. Lower class men and women would have to work for a living, and at the bottom of society were the slaves, who had no rights at all and were the absolute property of their owners. Slaves made up about 50% of the population of Athens.

In Sparta, there were three social classes, the Spartai, who were the original Spartans, the Periocei, who were descended from people conquered by the Spartati, and the helots, or serfs, who worked on the land. Freeborn Spartans were taken from home at the age of seven to live in military barracks and train for war. Girls married later than Athenian girls, at about 18, and were expected to exercise and keep themselves fit so they could bear healthy chidlren. Unlike Athenian women, they did not spin and weave, but left that to the helot women. Since then men were away most of the time, the women were left to run the family farms with the help of the helots.

In Rome, the patrician class ran the senate and occupied all the top government positions. The Plebeian class was made up of freeborn people from lower classes. The Equestrians mgith come from Patrician or Plebeian families, and were the bankers and economic leaders. And at the bottom of society were the class of slaves, who were the absolute property of their owners, but who like Greek slaves might earn or be given their freedom.

The Pater Families (male head of the family) had absolute power over all other family members, including adult male children. However, on his death adult male children were liberated from his authority, whereas adult women passed to the guardianship of the next Pater Familias. Women who married might or might not be passed to the guardinaship of their husbands. if they were not, it was known as a marriage without Manus.

the emperor Augustus, who was worried about the falling birthrate, passed a law called the law of Three or Foru children, which stated that a free woman who bore three children or a freedwoman (i.e. former slave) who bore four children, was automactically liberated from male guardianship.

Roman women of the upper classes were often very well educated and literate, it was thought desirable that women be well educated. Unlike Athenian women, Roamn women mixed freely with men socially.

Although women generally did have fewer rights than men, how a woman was viewd in society would depend on her social class as well as her gender, an upper class woman would expect to be defered to by lower class men for instance, and an older woman would expect to be shown respect by younger men.

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