textile production
textile production1. Social significance
Spinning and weaving held considerable symbolic and economic importance for women. In the 5th-cent. bc law code from Gortyn on Crete (3. 17), a woman who was widowed or divorced could keep half of what she had woven in the marriage. Women took pride in men's praise of their skills (e.g. Homer Odyssey 2. 104–5, 117; 19. 241–2; Plato Respublica 455c) and to ‘keep the house and work in wool’ was also a typical way of praising a woman after her death (epitaph of Claudia, 2nd cent. bc Rome, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 6. 15346). Weaving also carries the suggestion of deception; in Athenian tragedy, Deianira and Medea trap men with fatal robes. The association with women is so strong that to accuse a man of weaving is to suggest that he is effeminate (e.g. Cleisthenes (Aristophanes Aves 831), Egilius (Cicero De or 2....[The entire page is 1500 words long]
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