Women of Ancient Greece

4 Pages 917 Words

In today’s society, rights between men and women are as close to equal as they have ever been. The roles of men and women in society have become intermingled in every aspect. Through work, leisure, family, political, and religious issues, both men and women take part. This equality was a difficult and timely journey for women, and it is gut wrenching to consider women’s non-existent rights of ancient times. However, a possible alteration to the common view of women’s lives in ancient Greece may be disproved according to an article by Christine Mitchell Havelock. The evidence brought forth is strong and relevant to the argument, but the overall impact on the conception of a woman’s life in ancient Greece is hardly altered.
Women of ancient Greece may not have been as detested and rigorously forbidden in the way that ancient male-dominated “literary and legal sources” suggest. The argument could perhaps be more specifically defined by saying that the woman played a significant role in many parts of the funerary services of deceased loved ones, as well as an active part in the domestic affairs of the home. This argument is successfully supported by Havelock’s evidence found in a series of Greek funerary vases:
Funerary ceremonies were extremely important to the ancient Greek. Ritualistic activities such as processions of mourning filled the streets in times of death. The mourners were both male and female. Both sexes were active in the mourning, but as a duty women were to be emotional. Men held one hand in the air to show the grieving while women characteristically held both hands in the air. This evidence is crucially supportive, showing that women were involved in these burial ceremonies. (Havelock 50)
A scene of major significance can be seen on a vase presently in a museum in New York. The vase gives great detail in showing a dead male body surrounded by his immediate family. His wife is to the left sea...