Admittedly, in Greece, the women remain the eternal minor ones. They are constantly under the influence of a tutor, the kyrios, which it is of their father, their husband, their uncle, their brother or about their son. Consequently their legal and administrative freedom is very limited. They were excluded officially from any participation in the political life of the city, the public debate like exercise of political offices or defense of the city. It should be noted however that the word “citizen” (politès) exists in Greek with female (politis), but it is of a late and not very frequent use. Despite everything, the women found many occasions, in particular in Athens, to be integrated into the civic life: by their role in the transmission of the citizenship, by their place in the religious life, and as of the Hellenistic period by the public role of the queens and the easiest citizens.

It is especially through the case of the Athenian woman “citizen” of the 5th century before J. - C. that one considered up to now the situation of the Greek women. The literary texts and the documents illustrated on the Athenian citizen abound indeed and formed this image of the Greek recluse and minor woman. However, the analysis of other types of documents (inscriptions on stone for example), other cities (in the Peloponnese, in central Greece, minor Asia), other times (the 4th century and the Hellenistic time) moderates this image. As regards statute of the women citizens, Athens probably did not constitute a model for the other areas of Greece. On the other hand, in the whole of Greece, documentation does not offer anything or almost on the women wogs and even less on the women slaves.

Girl, woman and mother of citizen

The situation of the woman in Athens can be appreciated initially through the marriage and by the place which it occupies in the house, the oikos. It is initially to the girl of the citizen that one is interested. In the gynaeceum, the mother will educate her daughter to make a future good wife of it. She thus learns how to spin wool, to weave the fabrics, to direct the servants. In the aristocratic families, the girl learns how to read and write and receives a more thorough teaching in music and poetry; it is an education partly dependant on its future religious role. In Sparte, the girls receive also an physical education, a little with the image of that of the boys.

Then comes time from the marriage; this one is a fundamental act, especially since the law of Périclès of 451 av. J. - C. which specifies that to be a citizen it is necessary to have a father and a mother citizens. In general the girls marry young people, as of puberty - sometimes engagement can be concluded as of childhood - with a man often older. In all the cases, it is the father of the young girl who concludes engagement from the marriage. This one is the normal statute of the woman and its objective is clearly stated: to give legitimate children. A marriage is legal only if it links a citizen with a girl of citizen; sterility is a reason for divorce (or rather of repudiation of the woman by the husband). Ceremony of the marriage (gamos) led to make change the woman of house: it passes from that of her father to that of her husband, bringing a dowry (proix) to him.

This passage is important: the woman becomes the housewife of the husband, it is it which manages it, helped of her maidservants on the work of which it must take care. As for the dowry, it does not become the property of the husband: it has only usufruct of it. In the event of divorce, it must restore it.

That however does not make of the woman a complete legal being. She does not have really property right, but she is not completely isolated: she can cause property and transmit it, but she has neither the provision of it nor management. So that the goods do not leave the family circle, a girl who has neither brother nor direct descendants and which should inherit the goods of his/her father (girl épiclère) finds obliged to marry her more close relative. The Greek woman seems a kind of “under-citizen once again”, of struck citizen of incapacity. However, several examples are reported by the sources, as of the 4th century before J. - C., women - often of the widows - who managed and managed their goods, sometimes considerable. A shift existed certainly between theory and practices.

Courtesans

Certain women have a place except for in the Athenian company, the courtesans. One indicates under this term, hetaira in Greek, not the prostitutes, but certain independent women, of the partners, the concubines (also indicated specifically by the pallakaï term), alive under the protection of Athenians, sometimes rich, and having succeeded in themselves gathering a fortune sometimes considerable.

Some of them could play a big role in Athens including in the political arena, and one thinks here of most famous and surely most exceptional, Aspasie, the concubine of Périclès. One can arrange in this category the women wogs, come to be established in Athens for all kinds of reasons.

If poorest are indeed prostitutes (pornai), often installed in Pirée, most between them often activities in keeping with the trade exert; they can be also musicians, singers, etc They take part in the banquets, handle the money, in short, women free and independent, they are introduced into this “club of men” which is the city and take part fully of its evolution.

Priestesses

The life and the religious practices give to the Greek woman all her place within the civic community. But the role of the woman in the religion seems as much a factor of its integration in the city that like a manner of marking its otherness and its complementarity with respect to the men. This role is played first of all within the house, of the oikos. The woman, like housewife, makes a worship daily in Hestia, the goddess of the hearth; she holds also a paramount place in the worship of the ancestors and the ceremonies and practices funerary. The religious functions of the woman become all their extensive in the middle of the city. The women can be priestesses and take an active part in the religious ceremonies; certain ceremonies are even reserved to them.

Priestesses
It is a function of great importance, comparable with the magistratures. The women are mainly attached to female divinities like Athéna, Déméter or Artémis; but this rule is not absolute. This function is provided by the women under similar conditions those of the men: in Athens the priestess of Athéna Nike is appointed for one year and perceives wages (misthos) of 50 drachmas, and it profits from honorary distinctions as the place of honor to the theater. Certain priestesses were appointed with life, the such priestess of Athéna Polias in Athens. The priestesses were usually “normal” citizens, wives and mothers. However, in certain cases, rather rare, the priesthood is accompanied by restrictions concerning the sexual life. In Athens always, the wife of the archonte-king, the queen, was regarded as a priestess and exerted an important religious role.

Festivals, worships and ceremonies
The women take share with the great festivals of the city. At the time of Panathénées, they are young girls who are in charge of the clothes industry of the péplos of the goddess (ergastines) and her transport towards the Acropolis during the procession. During this one, the women carry various liturgical objects (water, basket, offerings, etc).

Certain festivals were exclusively reserved to them, like Thesmophories, celebrated in honor of Déméter Législatrice. As the adjective accompanying the name by the goddess indicates it, this festival was that of “the social order”: the legitimate wives citizens could only take part in it and the ceremony was chaired by a woman. The civic function of the woman, good wife and of mother of citizen, was thus celebrated. Only the participation of all the citizens in this festival guaranteed the fruitfulness of the community and thus its survival. On the other hand, at the time of certain festivals like Dionysies or Adonies, they are rather the marginal women who were concerned. Adonies allowed the concubines, courtesans and women wogs to mix with the Athenian or foreign men. Celebrated in the “lascivious heat of the summer” (according to the words of Marcel Holds), they are night festivals favourable with meetings out of family control.