Who Controls the Private Sphere in an Archaic Greek Society :: Women Power Greek Greece Essays

Who Controls the Private Sphere in an Archaic Greek Society Abstract Texts, such as Oeconomicus, state that while men in Archaic Greek society had potentiality over their wives, they were too confident of their control, and once they taught women how to act and behave they granted women authority over the base or private sphere. This segregation of the public and private spheres allowed women control not only over the private sphere, still also many control over her own life. Did women in Archaic Greek society have control over their lives? Today, many would argue that women did not have control, but rather their fathers and husbands controlled them. However, when looking closely at Greek texts, such as Xenophons Oeconomicus, one discovers that husbands were so confident of their control that once women were taught how to manage the syndicate they granted women complete authority over the decisions made in the private sphere. Although men still had authorit y over women, the segregation of public and private spheres gave wives roughly control over their lives. Initially, when a girl was married, her husband had complete control over her life. A mans bride was usually a very one-year-old girl who was considered an empty vessel because she had no knowledge about how to behave or manage a household. During a conversation in Oeconomicus between Socrates and Kritoboulos, Socrates asked, Did you link up her when she was a very young girl and had seen and heard as little as possible (16)? Since girls did not come to a mans household with any knowledge it was the husbands job to only fill her vessel with the knowledge that he wanted her to know. In this way, men believed that they had control over their wives lives. Although men felt that they had control over their wives lives, it seems unlikely that women came to their husbands without any knowledge about how to manage the household. No matter how sheltered a girl wa s elevated she still must have picked up skills from her mother. Therefore, it is safe to assume that girls were deceiving their husbands about the skills they knew and were simply putting on an act of naivete so their husbands believed they were in control.