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(Artemis was often seen as a Patron goddess and warrior in Sparta.) |
Unlike the women of Athens, Spartan women were taught reading and writing. They were also expected to be able to protect themselves. Where in Athens, the education of a girl involved spinning, weaving, and other domestic arts, for a Spartan woman such tasks were relegated to the helots or perioeci. A girl's education was equally as brutal as the men's; many athletic events such as javelin, discus, foot races, and staged battles were also for both sexes. In many such events, Spartan women would run naked in the presence of their male counterparts and were respected for their athletic feats. Though women in Sparta were not subject to the same training as given by Lycurgus, Spartan women were expected and driven to produce strong and healthy children, and to be loyal to their state. Spartan girls were better fed their Athenian counterparts, and were taught writing, something which Menander (an Athenian) said, "Teaching a woman to read and write? What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison."
Marriage for a Spartan woman was an almost non-ceremonial event. The woman was abducted in the night by her suitor, her head was shaved, and she was made to wear men's clothing and lye on a straw pallet in the dark. From there on she would meet with her husband for almost entirely procreative reasons. If she was formerly a girl, she became a woman through marriage. Any Spartan man could abduct a wife, which led to a system of polyandry (many husbands, one wife or vice versa) in Sparta. When a child was born, the woman had little to do with the his/her upbringing, rather nurses handled the child's care (in addition, a female Spartan child was subject to the same tests of strength as a male child.).
Women's roles in Sparta were not limited to marriage and procreation. Spartan women had many rights that other Greek women did not have. Namely, they could own and control their own property. They could also take another husband if their first had been away at war for too long. A woman was expected in times of war to overtake her husband's property, and to guard it against invaders and revolts until her husband returned; hence many Spartan women are pictured as warriors.