Why didn't the Athenians give the women the vote?

I have had a dreary cold, which in other circumstances would mean postponing teaching and taking to bed with a glass of whisky and a DVD. But the term-time schedule here (see previous moaning blog) means that if you put off an afternoon’s teaching, there’s really nowhere to put it except 7.00 in the morning or 10.00 at night sometime beyond next week. And I can assure you that students find that no more agreeable (or quaintly idionsyncratic) than you or I.

So you muddle through, like I did this afternoon from 2.30 to 7.00 solid, spreading your germs, trusting your voice will hold out, and hoping that the young will get you interested enough to forget you’re feeling so ghastly. It usually works. I can’t claim I was particularly looking forward to the three consecutive hours on the Critics (ancient and modern) of Athenian Democracy, but the students – pairs of my college first years – got me engaged. (If they didn’t, this job would be a lot less worth doing.)

One of the issues we skirted round was, of course, the Woman Question. Why didn’t those lovely democratic fifth-century Athenians give women political rights? And do we think worse of them for not doing so?

It’s easy enough to toe the party line here. You can't apply modern criteria to ancient Athens. Within Athenian culture women were assumed to be un-political animals. Their job was to bear citizen children (and weave -- neatly captured in the picture to the right). They were, almost by definition, incapable of taking the responsible, informed decisions demanded of the (male) citizen body. Different from us, of course; but that’s how the ancients, not just the Athenians, were.

So far so good. But the problem is trying to imagine what it would actually be like to think of women in those terms. What would it feel like to feel that women were, by definition, excluded from political power, that it would be simply bonkers to include them (a question, needless to say, that applies to many cultures other than fifth-century Athens).

The analogy we tried was children. If someone were now to suggest that the under-tens should have the vote, we would bring out all those arguments that the Athenians would have brought out against women. They can’t understand the decisions they would have to make. They still need the protection of their parents. It would be irresponsible to entrust major decisions of state or finance to them. In short it would be bonkers.

Yet could we imagine a world in the far distant future where children had the vote? Could we imagine a world which derided our twenty-first-century “folly’ in depriving a clever nine-year-old of her citizenly rights, while driving the frail 95 year-old to the polling station to put her cross by whoever happened to take her fancy on the morning?

Maybe we almost could? And maybe in the process we were beginning to empathise a bit better with the assumptions of the Athenian misogynists – and so understand the ancient world in a different way. And maybe in the process we were beginning to understand something more about "the invention of childhood" too.

And maybe my sore throat was receding in the fun of it all.

Comments

[dr venables preller]

Marcion Bruno's idea of a 'citizenship exam' seems such a no-brainer that it's a wonder it wasn't introduced long ago - unless politicians prefer a less savvy electorate, less able to figure what's what.

No need for it to cease at age 18 though, why not let it be mandatory throughout life?

Those deemed disenfranchised on account of missing know-how could be co-opted to focus groups and pollsters, so their valued democratic input could be better used for improvement of the political process, in a consultative capacity.

[Tony Francis]

Concerning the question "was the Statute Quia Emptores a factor leading to the War of the Roses?" - this appears as a stated fact on several chat boards. It would appear to be less than historically established.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/ed1-quia.html
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quia_Emptores
Perhaps the greater factor was the Black Death which decimated the work force, leading to extreme economic disruption:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_death
And the disastrous rule of Kings Edward II and Richard II:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_II_of_England
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England
And the Hundred Year's War:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years_War
In other words, it is far from established fact that the Statute Quia Emptores had any effect as a cause of the War of the Roses. It is an area ripe for research. I could see many PhD dissertations coming from this issue. Some cool, if romanticized paintings of the War of the Roses are found:
http://www.medieval-art.com/war_of_the_roses.htm

[Jenny]

God I'm jealous of your students Prof Beard! Actually, as my gap year sinks to new depths of depression and boredom, I'm jealous of pretty much any students, but especially yours, because for a start they get to have such fantastically interesting discussions, and then my Latin teacher told me to apply to Newnham, and (foolishly?) I ignored her. Got into Emma though, so I won't weep too much over that one. She also told me to apply for Latin, advice I definitely now feel I ought to have taken. Further to Frederick on the Spartan women - do the ruling men in parts of the Arab world not see how we live? Even a world where communications are as easy as our own can accommodate radically different cultural positions vis women and almost everything else; why should we be surprised that the ancients were the same? I can't say I could see children getting the vote any time soon, though perhaps this indicates a lack of imagination... I personally was quite a little reactionary aged 9, however precocious, and definitely would not have voted the same way I will do as soon as the opportunity arises now! (the joys of being 18) Also voting so young really precludes any outside influence on the children's opinions at all, so it would really all come from their parents. But then I think this is too much of a problem with most 18-year-olds, so maybe it isn't actually an issue at all...

[Marcion Bruno]

I can remember feeling very frustrated as a "clever nine year old" that I wasn't allowed to vote. I very much wanted to support Mrs Thatcher. Nothing that has happened in the intervening years has convinced me that I was wrong, or that my opinions were not rationally based.

My proposal would be that there be some sort of citizenship exam, with fairly complex questions about the political process, finance, world affairs and so on, which anyone at any age would be entitled to sit. If you managed to pass, you would be entitled to vote; if you failed, you'd have to wait till you were 18.

[Tony Francis]

The question of Athenian slavery advancing early Greek democracy is an old one. It goes back to at least William Mitford:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mitford
His research was probably biased against Athenian democracy because he was an anti-Jacobin and a royalist who doubted and distrusted the democratic ideas of the his time. In those days, Greek was not a standard subject in schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/b2g2/A471467
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-16737265.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3708/is_200110/ai_n8988708
Another question is how much did contemporary writers criticize slavery in their time? Michael Grant has written extensively on this in many books, indicating it was the Stoics and natural moral law which was in conflict with Roman slavery laws.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Grant_%28author%29
Others indicate there was critcism in ancient Greece.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_antiquity
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
The question remains unaswered.

[Eileen]

so schön ist das Zitat… Dr. Preller hat sich übertroffen.

[Máire]

I have been weeping salt tears for all these comments. When I joined the FO in 1963 we were told we would have to leave if we got married (men who married wives from non-friendly i.e anti-Nato countries also had to leave - though they were usually found a job in the UNO or similar). Three children and various grandchildren later I am happy not to have become a baroness or dame/"female ambassador" - though I think I had a lot to offer to the service - in the way of commonsense!

[dr venables preller]

Randyrrr’s thoughts of the Muse have some resonance, as I have from time to time accompanied myself on the piano singing Brahms’ Sapphic Ode:

‘Rosen brach ich nachts mir am dunklen Hage;
Süßer hauchten Duft sie als je am Tage;
Doch verstreuten reich die bewegten Äste
Tau, der mich näßte.

Auch der Küsse Duft mich wie nie berückte,
Die ich nachts vom Strauch deiner Lippen pflückte:
Doch auch dir, bewegt im Gemüt gleich jenen,
Tauten die Tränen.’

[RandyRR]

I wish our venerable propeller could meet and mate with violet-haired, pure,honey-smiling Sappho to appreciate the technologies of the time and the way the womenfolk exercised their minds and bodies in matters close to their hearts in complete agreement with their inclinations...

[Mary]

thanks richard -- getting better slowly.

[Richard]

On the "how far we have come"/ "students don't realise how recently things were so different" subject, I pointed out to my students that some of the rights which (some) Roman women had were ones that were gained here (the UK) only by the Married Women's Property Act of 1882:

This seemed to come as a great surprise to many.
I hope the cold is improving...
Best wishes,
Richard

[Tony Francis]

Eileen's cited article is interesting. I think it demonstrates a kind of modern bias by emphasizing the validity of contraception and abortion, while completely ignoring infanticide. The latter would have been the preferred method for population control. In the system of Pater Familias, there was a prominent father figure who either accepted or rejected the child into the larger family structure. We can infer this was the basic civil and political unit of ancient Greece, as it was in Rome.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pater_familias
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia
Most likely, this led to Greek influence on Roman Law:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_law
An edict from the 12 tablets urged the paterfamilias to do away with deformed or unwanted children. It can be speculated this was the same practice in Greece. The family, headed by a father figure remained the norm for political and civil purposes in Europe, despite the efforts to create regional or national royal powers. The Industrial Revolution finally put an end to paterfamilias. All the peasants moved to the city.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_revolution
Christianity, as a political force, criminalized infanticide. It is no accident the first laws against it appeared in 374 AD. Judasim had recommended against the practice, but was never a significant political presence to force legislation.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/infanticide

[abc]

Some people don't vote, or vote at a push, because they believe passionately in listening to the words of those around them. They are observers and don't particularly preen themselves on the sound of their own voice.

[Tony Francis]

A better than usual wikipedia article is:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
It appears to have been written by someone who knows the subject. It can be inferred from this article that women would not have been considered to be citizens of Athens. While a narrow range of the citizenry actually participated in the democracy, it was criticized at the time for being too inclusive. The article raises the question of slavery: did the importation of slaves allow even poorer citizens to participate in politics? Athens had more slaves than other Greek city-states. The less than wealthy were allowed to upset the old oligarchies. It is reminiscent of the inheritance of land by peasants, introduced by the Normans. When peasants were assured their children would inherit rights to the land, farm productivity increased dramatically. But alienation of the right of inheritance effectively ended feudalism within a few generations. This led to the Statute Quia Emptores in 1290, ending alienation by subinfeudation, or bastard infeudation.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quia_Emptores
The Statute, and its companion, Quo Warranto, had the opposite of its intended effect, speeding the end of feudalism. Land was now alienated by peasants through cash sales. The Wiki article indicates this led to the War of the Roses, which I think is a stretch.
Related to this problem was that of Mortmain, the "dead hand": a group of lawyers held land, in corporation, donated to the Church in perpetuity. The Church never died. This led to the Statutes Mortmain:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutes_of_Mortmain
The problem persisted until the time of Henry VIII.
Similar contrivances were done under the doctrine of "Cestui a que use foeffment fuit fate":
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestuy
This wiki article is poor. Whole books have been written on cestui a que use and the avoidance of taxes. They were complex beyond the abiity of human understanding.

[Eileen]

Being curious and having some time today, I found discussions of my questions at
Dēmos: Classical Athenian Democracy (A. Mahoney and R. Scaife, edd., The Stoa: a Consortium for Scholarly Publication in the Humanities)

http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_women_and_family?page=all&greekEncoding=#section_9

[Belle]

Another angle I take in looking at ancient societies is by examining what women did do. They worked the markets and fields, managed the farms and households - yet were denied rights/duties of the men. In this way, we can compare the work of women vs their public role. There again, the Athenian women come out worse than their Spartan counterparts.

[Tony Francis]

It is likely that "citizenship" had a different connotation in ancient Greece. Probably more important were family ties. A woman moved from her father's house, to the house of a husband chosen for her. She was a member of one family, then another. The father could dissolve the marriage before a child was conceived. A child would be either accepted into the family or rejected by the father. This was the pattern of civil structure in Europe until the Industrial Revolution. There are several sites, which are written on a high school or first year college level, but which contain some useful information:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/ancientchix/
http://www.womenintheancientworld.com
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Greek_World/women.html
A professor named "Christ" has been researching "citizenship" in Athens. According to him, the charge of "being a bad citizen" was frequently employed to impeach litigants at trials:
http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v29n1/ancientstudies.shtml

[Eileen]

were Athenian women even considered citizens at all? I seem to recall that in ancient Athens property ownership was a condition of citizenship. Could Athenian women own or hold property? what about inheritance?

[anthony alcock]

Votes for women was not even an issue in a place like Egypt. Nobody had a vote there. On the other hand it seems fairly clear that Egyptian women were "legal personalities" in the sense that they owned property and were able to dispose of it as they wanted.

[spout]

Spartan women? Hardly a model or parallel for modern women, I suspect. My understanding is that their unusual treatment was based on the idea that if they were healthy and active they would produce strong children and hence good warriors. They were venerated and valued as soldier factories - hence, if my memory serves me (which it may not - see below!), only women who died in childbirth and men in battle (both, in their own way, laying down their lives for their country) received funerary memorials.

I think much of the answer lies in contraceptives - child birth, rearing and feeding leave me for one exhausted, sometimes sick, emotional, often weepy, forgetful, unfocused, good for nothing but mundane and repetitive tasks - and I've only had a handful of them. Give a woman one every year or so for their reproductive life and all except the most robust probably would resemble children, or at least people so focused on the household and its demands that the city could not receive any attention. More idiots than politicians. Only the Aspasias suggest a different way for women.

[Xjy]

The vote - like education, health provision, housing etc - is something the poor and oppressed can only win by fighting. And winning is usually a combination of intense struggle and the collapse of the organized oppressor. Laws, rights and so on come afterwards to formulate, encapsule and legitimize what is won by fighting.

The oppressed position of women in classical Athens was historically NEW and the result of struggle for power by the men against older systems (giving women more say). A poetic vision of this is excitingly delivered in Robert Graves's novel Hercules, My Shipmate (thanks, Stu!).

Judging any period by parameters that ignore political and cultural struggle of mass dimensions (class, ethnos, etc) is as crazy as trying to apply today's laws on pornography or abortion to our brothers and sisters of a thousand generations ago.

The rich and powerful (however they define themselves to exclude others) always try to perpetuate their wealth and power, whether by no votes or crooked votes or irrelevant votes. The only way to stop this is to prise their fingers open and make the prize accessible to all. Prising rich and wealthy fingers open is hard and painful. Sometimes requires bolt cutters.

Wish Aspasia had had a reality TV team following her around :-)

[Tony Francis]

For those interested, there is a cool comet, Comet Holmes visible in the eastern sky. I can find it by looking at the Pleidies, then moving about one hand to the left (north) and one hand up. It is a fuzzy ball with plain field glasses. Directions can be found at:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/
According to this site, it will be visible until March.

[dr venables preller]

Paulo: I was suggesting that subsistence and survival (including procreation) until relatively recently in the western world (and still in parts of the developing world) were and are the paramount consideration for most people.

Advances in technology have reduced these concerns for the majority (much as the work organisation systems used in the Roman empire did for a minority), though a more significant use has been in implementing war capability and control of people.

Insofar as evolution is a process of adaptive change which can after the event be attributed to defining factors, technological change has contributed and in some cases probably been instrumental in freeing up thinking time in the bulk of the population, some of which has been used in developing structures and patterns for pursuit of freedoms. Note also that some of these perceived freedoms have required greater control of other people for their realisation, and that consequently the degree of freedom, fulfilment or control varies according to perspective.

My broader point was that freedom of itself is no guarantee of happiness or human fulfilment and can sometimes lead to the opposite. The simple pleasures from work well done and rewarding interaction may by contrast be more easily achieved within more rigid societiy structures, and an acceptable equilibrium between often opposing or competing factors may appear to become more elusive the more it is sought.

[Frederick]

I assume that Athens was aware of the status of Spartan women; would that knowledge not have provided insight into women's ability to do more than breed and weave?

[paul potts]

I don't really know whar Dr. Preller was on about,though it was probably benign. I do have to protest, though, when he seems to think that the onward march of technology etc. has something to do with Evolution. Was that some kind of joke?

Pauo

[Julia from Illinois]

Tony Francis:
You are so right. I'm 63 and have great difficulty explaining what the world for women was like in the early 1960s when I was in college and first working.

I tested very high in university entrance exams and was told that I should be a medical technologist because that's the most difficult course for women in university. Nothing about medicine or law or engineering or go for a PhD in physics. My other option was to be nurse or teacher.

Working in the lab at the university hospital during my school years, I was paid an hourly rate less than the dental students who were paid a flat rate for X hours whether they worked that many hours or not. I complained and was told that they were guys trying to pay their tuition; I replied that I was doing the same along with a student husband and a baby on the way. I also pointed out that I knew the three guys (I was in biochemistry class with them) and knew they were single, had great cars and their money went for parties. No response from the boss. I had no recourse.

By the time I had 2 kids, my medical intern husband could make more money working one night in an ER over the week-end than I could working full-time. The equal pay for equal work laws were not in effect until I had been a stay-at-home mom form some years.

Meanwhile, my college room-mate went to law school as one of two women in her class. The other one had been sent by the lawfirm where she was a secretary in to have one year under her belt to make her more useful to the office. My roommate (not a sweet little flower) lasted one year because the harassment from students and teachers was so awful. I entered lawschool at the ripe old age of 44 in 1988, 1/3 of the class was women and only one professor gave the women a hard time - none of my male classmates gave us any trouble at all. It was age descrimination when it came to hiring time. All 50+ interviewers were younger than me and had a hard time concealing smirks.

Young people are just aghast when I tell them this stuff.

[Tony Francis]

In re Michael Bulley's comment about "weighted votes": it is of interest that the original US Constitution allowed land owners (about 10% of the population) the vote. As late a 1855, some states invoked a "literacy test" to vote, in order to exclude the burgeoning Irish population from political access.
http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html
http://www.historynow.org/09_2004/historian4.html
The trend has been toward more inclusion in voting rights, than exclusion. It is an interesting history:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
Concerning competency to vote: it has long been alleged that US nursing home inhabitants and those with Alzheimer's Disease will vote in lock step with the political views of the social worker in the unit, via absentee ballots.
Concerning Dr. Preller: Increasing "rights" is a way to measure progress. In terms of women, it is very much a question of access to education, then professional options. There is nothing in this access that guarantees that the educated woman will feel more fulfilled, or satisfied with her life. But then, there is no guarantee the educated man will be fulfilled. Still, I think most women would prefer the options of getting an advanced education.

[dr venables preller]

Without ability to drill into the minds of a representative sample of the Athenian population, the error of applying modern thought processes to putative analysis of the situation then may in any event be flawed from the perspective of balancing what was achieved with what might have been desired.

Much significant historical change arises from random events atypical of the time and the chance of characters being in positions of power who may have been (by our standard) outside the range of normality or even actually mad in a psychological sense. Looking at progress only from the perspective of human rights (a relatively recent concept) whilst ignoring other charitable advance can give a somewhat one-sided view. It may also be that it is the freedom from mundane drudgery as a result of mechanical and technical invention which has liberated more minds to think of improvement, rather than subsistence or survival. It could also be that many such minds are less up to that task than such as Plato.

It may be that the problems arising from excess leisure are a challenge which most minds are unable adequately to address. A vision of the future as offering opportunity for ‘leisure centres’ devoted to gambling and mindless games of chance, entertainment requiring minimal intellectual engagement and education subverted to offer less learning but more indoctrination seems unworthy of descendants of great civilisations of the past.

At what point did we miss the Way?

[Tony Francis]

It is difficult to comprehend the progress western women have made in the last century. The 19th amendment gave US women the vote in 1920. When I was in medical school in the 1970s, about 25% of the students were women. That was thought to be exceptional. Now it is 50%. The same thing applies to law schools: more than half are women. Contrast this to 1948: my mother graduated with a degree in journalism, which in those days, was deemed somewhat unusual. The amazing thing is how long women were excluded from anything more than "family matters" and "coffee volunterism". But then, the political structure of Europe prior to WW I was dominated by royalty whom were all first cousins. How much have things changed in 100 years? A lot. Women in 1850 or 1900 were probably more similar to their ancient Greek cousins, than they are to their great-granddaughers, today.

[Nick]

This illustrates perfectly the problem of judging the past by the standards of today, and of course raises the question of how the future will judge us.
"Revisionist" history has a bad name precisely because it attempts to impose modern standards where they did not and probably could not apply.
To view the Athenians (or almost any other historical culture) through the lens of 20th century feminism is to miss the point. The first steps of the long road that has led to todays world were taken then and that is the lesson we need to learn and remember.

[arindam bandyopadhaya]

I simply cannot imagine if a shrew like Xanthippe had the vote.

[dr venables preller]

Michael, the idea of a vote which is proportional to certain attributes of the stakeholder has always held appeal – to some (usually those enfranchised thereby) – but in an age when elites seem to be endangered by possible trend to pariah status, it is difficult to sense what might drive that, other than catastrophe of some type.

Further difficulty of the quis custodiet nature might arise from obtaining a consensus as to value ranking of such attributes.

However, an Electoral College system might be workable, and the longevity of the city-state of Venice is testimony to system stability of such structures.

The problem of generational change where the immediate is widely preferred over its opposite suggests that any equilibrium may need to be more dynamic than in the past.

[Michael Bulley]

Or you could imagine a future where the 20th-century idea of all votes counting equal was regarded as quaint. In that future, votes would, of course, be weighted according to ability and character. So someone who had a classics degree and a strong interest in the music of Monteverdi, but was hopeless at map-reading might get 60 plus 60 minus 30; someone with a doctorate in pure maths, but a wet handshake would get 70 minus 40; and someone who pronounced "contribute" with the stress on the first syllable would be automatically disenfranchised.

[dr venables preller]

Given the technologies of the time, it would be surprising if the womenfolk had the time from their traditional roles to exercise their minds in matters of which they possibly then had little inkling, even had they had the inclination.

That is not to pass judgment, merely an observation that evolutionary effects of technology and civilisation's onward march were not to bear fruit with such immediacy.

It would be interesting to know whether, in general, contentment overcame wish for change. Correlation of present day rigid society structures in less developed parts of the world with measures of happiness with the status quo does suggest that, in some cases, change for the sake of it may sometimes be a two edged sword.

Do we have extant writings of the feminists of the day, and what were their views?
If there is a shortage in that department, why might that possibly be?

The analogy with political rights -and responsibilities- of the child seems valid, though one might expect possible future pressure for further lowering the age qualification.

With current trends to polarisation by age and other asymmetry the risk may be building for undemocratic change.