Though they did not participate in government, the women did enjoy considerable freedom, could accumulate property and exercise considerable power. The women of Sparta were given freedom, power, respect and status that were unheard of in other Greek city-states. The main function of Spartan women was to be wives and mothers of citizens. Women knew their central goal was to “continue Sparta, through childbirth”. Xenophon wrote, “Lycurgus thought that for free women the most important job was to bear children”.
A wider range of jobs became available to them, they gained more independence and weren’t viewed as second citizens but most importantly, World War One lead to women in Britain gaining the vote. Before the First World War, The majority of women stayed at home and their priorities were looking after the family and the house. Women were seen as the property of their husband. The variety of women’s jobs was very narrow and most women had never had a proper job in their lives. During the war, asso many men were involved in fighting, countless women had a job whether it was working in a munition factory, driving an ambulance or working for the transport of London.
Nowadays, men and women have the same rights; they have the possibility to vote, the opportunity of choosing a career as well as the chance of working. Another point to consider is that in the past, women prepared daughters for life as a housewife or a mother. Having domestic training instead of having academic preparation that boys took. Women had to attend courses of study in order to be teachers, secretaries seamstresses or they simply stayed at homes to be housewives their whole lives while their husbands were working outside. However, this is completely different nowadays; there are lots of women who have successful careers as doctors, architects, engineers, lawyers, and many other jobs that used to be specifically for men.
Before the 20th century, the role of a woman was only to stay home and cook, clean, and take care of the kids. A woman going out a having a career of her own was never even a thought. Women were not allowed to do labor intensive work as they were considered physically weaker than a man. Because of this, men took all the opportunities they wanted to become successful whereas women’s opportunities were limited in the household as that was the only place they could ever be. Now, in the 20th century, women have a multitude of opportunities when compared to women back then.
Sparta had two kings, both hereditary, but there were five ephors elected by the citizen assembly who oversaw and had veto power over the kings, so it was an interesting mixture of oligarchy and democracy. In Athens, women would generally marry at quite an early age, around twelve to fourteen. They were expected to stay at home most of the time, and busy themselves spinning and weaving, and supervising the slaves. Women of the lower classes would go out and about more, as they would have to work for a living, and would not have slaves to do things like fetching water etc. Women took no part in political life, but they did participate fully in religious life, taking part
; Solon, the man who encouraged trade and the popular assembly’s ratification of laws, creating an oligarchic plutocratic democracy in 594 B.C.E. ; Peisistratus, a military hero helped kick the noble class out in 560 B.C.E. ; and Cleisthenes, who helped the popular assembly to be capable of making laws in 507 B.C.E. After these changes, Hellenistic Athens simply ended up with what we usually classify as a “limited democracy.” Sparta, however, remained constant with a diarchy; one king specialized in the military issues, while the other king ruled the nation. After the kings, the greatest amounts of powers were given to the Five Ephers.
Instead, the people chose officials to represent them. On the other hand, Athenians did let people vote on matters rather than just have representatives vote for them. The Athenian government was introduced into a set of laws that helped end local rivalries and break the power of the aristocracy. This introduction gave a structure to their government and made it a democracy. After this, all citizens could be considered equal before the law and guaranteed freedom of speech.
Also, in modern times we have a representative democracy unlike the Greeks who had a direct democracy. I do believe our ideals or concept of democracy did come from the Greeks. However, the democratic government was never accept by the majority of the Greek city-states. It wasn't the actual mass of the population in this democracy but only the majority of male citizens who were the ones to make the decisions for the whole
Most women were brought up to support her husband and look after her home and children; her time was always contributed to her home. As the women would always be in the house they would barely go out. The odd occasion would consist of going to the shop or going to visit the neighbor, even though they were minor trips a women would need a chaperone to take her out of the house, this would consist of the husband or brother, or even another female, but a women would never go out by herself. Women were expected to act in an appropriate restrained way than men. This would include men spitting, swearing, smoking and drinking alcohol.
For example, under Mughal rule, conditions got significantly better for women. Women were no longer forced to throw themselves into fire if their husband died before them. Also, women had begun to be educated and to learn how to read and write. Likewise, the age mandatory for marriage in the Mughal empire was raised and women were allowed to remarry. This is in contrast to the Ottoman empire where women were forced to stay at home and had little to any rights.