Home > Feminism > Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages - Paul Cartledge (Essay Date 1981)
Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages - Paul Cartledge (Essay Date 1981)
PAUL CARTLEDGE (ESSAY DATE 1981)
SOURCE: Cartledge, Paul. “Spartan Wives: Liberation or Licence?” Classical Quarterly 31 n.s., no. 1 (1981): 84-105.
In the following excerpt, Cartledge studies the unique role women held within the militaristic society of ancient Sparta.
[I now begin] tracing the lives of Spartan women in the sixth to fourth centuries B.C. from the cradle to (in some cases) the grave. I use the vague term ‘Spartan women’ advisedly. The available evidence does not permit inferences of a statistical nature about the experience of a ‘typical’ Spartan woman, although in some contexts it will be necessary and possible to distinguish that of rich women. Besides, . . . the literary sources who provide the fullest pictures are highly, and consciously, selective, and they are all non-Spartan and male. Their selectivity and bias may, however, be offset to some extent by tapping sources...
[The entire page is 2917 words long]
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- Introduction
- Representative Works
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Primary Sources
- Pan Chao (Poem Date C. 1St Century)
- Yu Xuanji (Lyric Date C. 9Th Century)
- Three Beautiful Sisters, Orphaned Young
- Izumi Shikibu (Diary Date C. Early 11Th Century)
- Marie De France (Poem Date C. 12Th Century)
- Heloise (Letter Date C. 1163/64)
- Catherine Of Siena (Essay Date 1370)
- Birgitta Of Sweden (Essay Date C. 1377)
- Women In The Ancient World
- Women In The Medieval World
- Women In Classical Art And Literature
- Women In Medieval Art And Literature
- Classical And Medieval Women Writers
- Further Reading
- Copyright
