Spartan Women and Family Life, Sayings of Spartan Women, from Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus

Today we will learn and reflect on what it was like to
be a Spartan woman and family life in Sparta. What
was it like to be a woman immersed in the military
culture of Sparta? What was it like to raise children in
Sparta?

Why do we want to study what it was like to be a Spartan
woman? Because in the future we will be reflecting on Plato’s
Republic. In his utopia Plato describes some odd marital
practices, controlled by the state, that may be similar to Spartan
practices. Was Plato’s Republic actually a reflection on whether
the Spartan social mores were superior to the Athenian social
mores? After all, Sparta did win the Peloponnesian Wars, Was
Spartan culture seen as superior by some in Athens?
We have already reflected on the life of a Spartan warrior, and if
you were not a warrior you were a slave, for Spartans were not
permitted to be merchants.

Being a woman in any ancient warrior culture was a
challenge, as depicted in the Homeric classic, the
Iliad, where the basic plot line was two warriors,
Achilles and King Agamemnon, who bickered over a
concubine captured in raids in the Trojan Wars.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video. Please feel free to follow along
our PowerPoint script posted to SlideShare. Please,
we welcome interesting questions in the comments.
Let us learn and reflect together!

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Although all Greek city-states were defended by
citizen hoplite forces, Sparta was unique in that her
army was a permanent army, where all male citizens
lived in military barracks from the age of seven until
they were thirty years old, constantly honing their
military skills. We discuss what is was like to fight like
a hoplite in our Histories of Herodotus video.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite

Our major source is Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta.
Unlike Solon, the lawgiver of Athens, who was definitely a real person,
most historians agree that Lycurgus was likely a legendary founder figure,
like Romulus and Remus of Rome, and that his life and achievements
were a composite of many Spartans, perhaps over several generations.

Statue of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta, Law Courts of Brussels, Belgium/ painting by Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1828

Interestingly, the historian Will Durant states that the
ideal age for marriage for a man was thirty, while a
women was expected to be married by twenty, but
this differs from most other sources that state that
Spartan men marry at twenty and live with their
wives and families at thirty.

Lycurgus of Sparta, by Abel de Pujol, 1811

We must remember that the Spartans left us no
works of literature, everything we know about the
Spartans are memorialized by Athenian or other
Greek and Roman authors. We can know only what
the ancient sources tell us, supplanted by
archaeology, inscriptions and coins, and these
customs may have developed over time, so our
knowledge of ancient times will always be
incomplete.

Spartan Women, Marriage, and Family Life
Young Spartans, by Edgar Degas, 1860

Plutarch said that Lycurgus
proscribed “a tough regime
of physical exercise for
unmarried women,
involving running,
wrestling, discus, and
javelin, so that when the
time came for embryos to
take root in their wombs,
they would gain a healthy
start in healthy bodies and
develop well, while the
women themselves would
have the strength to
endure childbirth and
would cope well and easily
with the trials of labor.”

“Lycurgus removed their
physical frailty, stopped
them from spending all
their time indoors, and
in general got rid of their
femininity; he made girls
just as used to boys to
parading naked, and to
dancing and singing at
festivals, with young
men as spectators.”
They were even
encouraged to taunt
young men!”

The ancient world was a different world, their medical
knowledge and cures were primitive. For example, I had
appendicitis as a teenager, I would have died if I had lived in
the ancient world. In the ancient world, parents often did not
name their children until they were a few weeks old due to the
high infant mortality rate. Only half of children survived to
adulthood, some scholars estimate that only one in ten
survived to a ripe old age. Definitely, the Spartan emphasis on
physical fitness for girls better prepared them for the rigors of
childbirth, although we can only speculate on the degree.

Plutarch’s Lycurgus explains,
“There was nothing shameful
in the young women’s
nakedness, never a trace of
lewdness, but only modesty.
On the contrary, nudity
accustomed them to
simplicity and made them
admire physical fitness.”
Plutarch says this was also
done to encourage marriage.

Abduction of Helen, by Francesco Primaticcio, 1539
Plutarch’s Lycurgus tells us about the
crazy marriage customs of the Spartans,
which reflected their extreme warrior
culture. “The marriage ceremony
involved the forceful abduction of the
woman, who would not be a child, too
young for marriage, but a woman in her
prime, ripe and ready for it. The
abducted woman was then handed over
to the so-called bridesmaid, who would
cut her hair very short, dress her in a
man’s clothes and shoes, and leave her
lying alone on a straw mattress without
any light to see by.”

This may have upset the uptight British historians a century ago,
Will Durant prefaces this account by Plutarch by stating that their
parents arranged the marriage before this staged abduction, and
he adds that the woman is expected to resist so she can truly be
seized, like she was a Homeric concubine! The footnote says the
source is both Plutarch and another Englishman.
This would not upset ancient audiences nearly as much;
abduction was seen by some as an acceptable method of
courtship. We should also remember that the Trojan Wars
themselves were started when Prince Paris of Troy kidnapped
Helen of Sparta from her husband Menelaus.

Several church councils reminded Christians that
abduction was not an acceptable form of courtship,
the last to proclaim this was the Council of Trent.

Seizing women for marriage was part of many ancient cultures. When in
war a particularly hated city-state was conquered, it was common
practice to slaughter the military age men and enslave the women and
children, and many of the women would be enslaved as concubines. Early
in the Peloponnesian Wars, Thucydides tells us the dramatic story of how
first the Athenian Assembly condemned the city-state of Mytilene to this
fate, then changed their mind the next day, and how a furiously rowed
trireme bearing this good news beat the previous day’s trireme just in the
nick of time, saving the city of Mytilene!
Thucydides also tells of the siege of the Melians, whose men were
executed, and her women and children sold into slavery at the hands of
the Athenians late in the war, and how the Athenians worried they would
suffer the same fate when they lost the war to Sparta.

Although the Trojan War legends assure us that
Queen Andromache of Troy retained her honor when
she was enslaved, that is her depicted in the slave
market on our YouTube thumbnail.

Another example of a massive abduction of women is
the Rape of the Sabine women, which was a founding
Roman myth where the ancient Romans abducted the
women for wives from a neighboring tribe. Also, in
the ending chapters of the Book of Judges, the men
from the depleted tribe of Benjamin were permitted
to mass abduct their wives.

The Rape of the
Sabine Women,
by Peter Paul
Rubens, 1640

But then Will Durant says
something surprising, that if
some adults of marrying age
were unmarried, “several men
might be placed into a dark room
with an equal number of girls and
be left to pick their life mates in
the darkness; the Spartans
thought that such choosing
would not be blinder than love.”

The source he footnotes for this is not Plutarch, but
another historian named Athenaeus, a third century
Roman historian in Egypt, two centuries after
Plutarch. What were his sources for this? Whether
this was an actual practice or just stories spun over
five centuries is impossible to say, but we do know
for certain that the thought of a lusty young man
competing and grabbing for his bride in a dark room
is entertaining.

Detail of the Chigi Vase depicting hoplites in action

Plutarch’s Lycurgus does not want
us to forget about the groom on
his wedding night, “who was not
drunk,” because Spartan men
never get drunk, “but was sober
as usual, having first dined in his
phidition,” which is the military
mess hall, “and then slipped into
the room, undid the woman’s
belt, picked her up, and carried
her over to the bed. He spent only
a short time with her before
leaving quietly,” before returning
to his barracks.
Ulysses (Odysseus) and Penelope, by Francesco Primaticcio, 1545

Spartan boys in their military training camps are
never fed enough to thrive, so they must develop the
stealth needed to steal the food to be healthy, and
this need for stealth continues into their married life,
except that they needed to be stealthy to visit their
wives, rather than to cheat on them.

Plutarch’s Lycurgus states that
afterwards the young husband
“would visit his wife secretly, taking
every precaution out of
embarrassment and fear of being
seen by anyone in the house.
Meanwhile his wife would be
devising plans” “for them to meet
without anyone else knowing about
it.” Quite often there would be
“children born before the men saw
their own wives by the light of day.”

How crazy is this! Did this help or
hurt the Spartan demographics?
Plutarch’s Lycurgus opines that it
helped increase the number of
Spartan warriors, because when the
Spartan “couples came together for
sex, they were physically fertile and
ready for love, rather than being
sated and added from unrestricted
sexual intercourse, so that every
time they parted, a feeling remained
in each of them which would act as a
stimulus for desire and affection.”
Lycurgus, Lawgiver, by Bonifazio de' Pitati, late 1500's

Modern and most other scholars disagree with Plutarch. The Spartan lifestyle
encouraged rampant homosexuality and pederasty, perhaps more than a few men
just didn’t want to be bothered sneaking around just to spend time with their
wives. Modern historians are unanimous that Sparta always had problems
replenishing her warriors, and the earthquake that struck and wiped out one entire
military class when their barracks collapsed during the Peloponnesian Wars
certainly did not help.
Marriage in Sparta was not a private affair, and the state was very interested in her
women bearing many warriors. You might ask, with all this separation and sneaking
around, was adultery a problem? The answer is no, adultery was not only not a
problem in Sparta; it was also almost impossible. Because, in Plutarch’s words,
“Lycurgus banished the vain, womanish feeling of jealousy,” Spartan men were
permitted to share their wives!

King Leonidas at
Thermopylae, by
Jacques-Louis
David, painted
1814

The Magnanimity of
Lycurgus, by Jean-
Jacques-François Le
Barbier, 1791

Plutarch’s Lycurgus imagines,
“Suppose an older Spartan man
with a young wife liked and
approved of a young man of nobility
and virtue: he could introduce him
to her and then, once the younger
man had impregnated his wife with
his noble seed, he could adopt the
son as his own.” Just like breeding a
horse, I suppose, with the same
concern for bloodlines.
Lycurgus statue, Law Courts of Brussells

Plutarch’s Lycurgus continues,
“Suppose a man of high principles
admired a woman who was
married to someone else for her
modesty and fine children: he
could prevail upon her husband to
let him sleep with her, so that he
could sow his seed in rich and
fertile soil and produce excellent
children who would be blood
brothers of others just as fine.” Lycurgus, US House of Representatives, by
Paul Jennewein, 1950.

Then Plutarch says that Lycurgus says
that the laws of the other Greek city-
states regarding love and marriage are
“stupid and hypocritical,” because
while “people arranged for their
bitches and mares to be mounted by
the best male” dogs and horses of
their neighbors, “they keep their wives
under lock and key, claiming that they
and they alone had the right to have
children by them, whether they, the
husbands, were idiots or dotards of
invalids.” So, in Sparta, is adultery
impossible, or is it simply legalized?
Lycurgus of Sparta, by Merry Joseph Blondel, 1828

Education in Sparta, by Luigi Mussini, 1850 The Hit, by Frederic Leighton, 1800’s
Raising Small Children in Sparta

The Spartan state was intimately interested in the
raising of future Spartan warriors.

Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta, 1785.

Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta, 1785.
After a child was born, “it was not up to the
father whether the child was to be brought up.
Instead, the child was taken to an” assembly of
the eldest men of his tribe.

“They examined the baby,
and if it was sturdy and
strong, they told the
father to bring it up, and
assigned it one of the
9,000 plots of land; if it
was flawed or deformed,
they sent it to the place
called Apothetai, the
place of exposure, a
rugged spot near Mount
Taygetus, since death was
preferable for both the
child and the state” if it
was weak and sickly.
Examining Spartan infants, by Giuseppe Diotti, 1840

Spartan nurses were also tough. Helicopter
moms were forbidden in Sparta. Plutarch
tells us that the nurses “train the babies to
use their limbs and bodies freely by
dispensing with swaddling clothes, and
also not to be fussy and fastidious about
their food, not to be scared of the dark or
frightened of being left alone, and never to
demean themselves with tantrums or
tears.” Then Plutarch tells us that many
people sought out Spartan nurses to bring
their children up tough!
Three Spartan Boys Practising Archery,
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, circa 1812

Like in nearly all societies, young girls and boys played together until the
boys started their military training at age seven or so. Not much is said
about how girls are raised at home. Dr Wikipedia, referencing a modern
historian in the footnote, states that Spartan girls were taught music,
dancing, singing, and poetry, and could participate in certain religious
cults. Was there any education for girls outside the home? Who knows?
Likely not.
Spartan housewives were far more independent than Athenian and most
other Greek women, because their husbands mostly lived in the barracks!
That means that women ran the household, and since adultery was less of
a problem, due to lax community norms, women were seen in public,
unlike the cloistered Athenian wives.

Greek Girls Picking up Pebbles by the Sea, by Frederic Leighton, 1871

Greek Girls Playing Ball, by Frederic Leighton, 1889

Raising young Spartan children was a
community affair, they were also
raised by neighbors, who were free to
discipline them. Pseudo-Xenophon
tells us that “should any boy tell his
father that he has been beaten by
another, then it is a disgrace if the
father does not give his son a further
beating.” “A Spartan father would trust
that another Spartan would not give
their children any dishonorable order.”
The Hit, by Frederic Leighton, 1800’s

A spartan woman giving a shield to her son, by Jean-Jacques-
François Le Barbier, painted 1826
Sayings of Spartan Women
The Spartan Mother, by Louis-
Jean-François Lagrenée, 1770

Spartan women are raised to encourage their boys to
behave like men and raise their boys to be future
warriors.
Plutarch collected Spartan sayings by both men and
women, enjoy our favorites!

A Spartan woman, “as she was handing her
son his shield and giving him some
encouragement, said, ‘Son, either with this or
on this.’”
She was telling her son that he should either
return carrying his shield, which means he
did not break in fear and run from the battle,
dropping his shield; or that he should be
carried home dead on his shield.
When a foreigner once said, “You Laconian
women are the only ones who control your
men,” she received a Laconian reply, “That’s
because we’re the only ones who give birth
to men.”
The Spartan Mother, by Louis-Jean-François
Lagrenée, 1770

Hearing that her son had died in
battle, one Spartan mother
responded, ‘Wasn’t it inevitable
that, when he fought the enemy,
either he would be killed by
them, or he would kill them? To
hear that he died in a fashion
worthy of me and the city and
his ancestors is pleasanter than if
he were immortal but a coward.”
“Another Spartan woman killed
her son, who had deserted, as
unworthy of his country, saying:
‘He not my offspring.’” A spartan woman giving a shield to her son, by Jean-Jacques-
François Le Barbier, painted 1826

The following sayings demonstrate
that the capture and sale of women
as slaves was common in the
ancient world, and that women
made the best of a bad situation:
“A Spartan woman who was up for
sale and was asked what skill she
possessed, said ‘To be
trustworthy.’”
“Another woman who had been
taken prisoner and was asked the
same question, said, ‘To manage a
household well.’”
Courage of Women of Sparta, by Jean-Jacques-François
Le Barbier, 1700's

“When a woman was asked by
somebody whether she would be
good if he were to buy her, she
said: ‘Yes, and even if you don’t
buy me.’”
“Another woman was asked by the
auctioneer what skills she had, she
said, ‘To be free.’ When the man
who bought her ordered her to
perform services unfitting for a
free woman, she declared, ‘You’ll
be sorry that you didn’t refuse to
make a purchase like this!’, and
committed suicide.” Education in Sparta, by Luigi Mussini, 1850

We think we have problems, just imagine what it was
like to be a woman living in the ancient world. She
didn’t worry so much about retirement, she worried
about whether about a possible future when some
foreign army would swoop in, kill her husband either
in battle or afterwards, and enslave her and her
children, and the possibility she and her daughters
would be the concubine of an enemy soldier!

The Sack and
Burning of Troy,
by Francisco
Collantes, 1800’s

Since all our videos on the Peloponnesian Wars use many of the same
sources, we have a video on Book Reviews of ancient Greek history.
In addition, we picked up this Penguin collection of writings, Plutarch on
Sparta. It includes an amusing collection of Spartan sayings, and Spartan
women’s sayings, and a short essay on Sparta by an author I am calling
pseudo-Xenophon, because most scholars do not believe he is the true
Xenophon, though he appears to be copying his style. After reading it,
this makes sense to me, though I did not read the original Greek.
Included are biographies of Spartan Kings who fought in the various wars
in a better translation than the Dryden translation which I dislike.

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
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Spartan Women and Family Life, Sayings of Spartan Women, from Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus

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