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Reconsidering the status of women in archaic Greece

Pellam, Gregory George
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1413458893

Abstract Details

2008, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, History.
Scholarship on the subject of women in ancient Greece has long been guided by an old paradigm of social evolution developed in the nineteenth century. This interpretation held that women in the classical period (ca. 500-323 B.C.E.), especially at Athens, lived in a despicable state—they were cloistered in their homes, with few political rights, their only duty to produce more citizens for the state. But, according to this model, in earlier periods it had not been so bad. In Greece’s “Dark Age” (ca. 1100-700 B.C.E.), women are said to have experienced a far better lifestyle. Consequently, much scholarship on women in the intermediary period (ca. 700-500 B.C.E.), known as the “Archaic” period, has focused in large part on identifying the point at which the change took place. This purpose of this thesis is to examine the status of women in the earliest extant Greek literature, the poems of Homer, in order to determine whether it bears out this view. The conclusion reached is that the status of women in the Homeric poems is far more complicated than the old paradigm would hold; that women exist totally under the power of men. Further, when considered in light of recent scholarship, which has called into question the old notions about women in the classical period, the status of women in ancient Greece reveals itself to be a far more complicated question than has been assumed. Consequently, the literary, archaeological, and epigraphic evidence for women in this intermediate period must be examined in its own right, without reference to outdated paradigms of social development.
Nathan S. Rosenstein (Advisor)
Gregor Anderson (Committee Member)
Joseph H. Lynch (Committee Member)
40 p.
History

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Citations

  • Pellam, G. G. (2008). Reconsidering the status of women in archaic Greece [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1413458893

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Pellam, Gregory. Reconsidering the status of women in archaic Greece. 2008. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1413458893.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Pellam, Gregory. "Reconsidering the status of women in archaic Greece." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1413458893

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1413458893
316
© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.