Greek Women

Many sources suggest that the seclusion of Athenian women within the home was total, but this cannot be the whole truth. In comedy, women are portrayed outside the house, but a distinction needs to be made between those who had to go outside to fetch water, for instance, and those of higher status who had slaves to do this for them, but who nevertheless enjoyed other relationships, particularly with other women, outside the home.

Whatever the reality of women's lives, for the most part they have left little record of it. When they do speak, especially in tragic drama, it is most often through mens' voices. What women really felt as they sta together in the womens' quarters of the homes of urban Athens is unknown. They may have taken some satisfaction in their status as citizens and mothers of citizens to be.

The most important moment of transition in a woman's life was marriage. This experience often consisted of being taken at a young age into a relationship with a man ten to fifteen years her senior. A fragment of one of Sophocles' plays records the experience:

"Unmarried girls, in my own opinion, have the sweetest existence known to mortals in their fathers' homes, for their innocence always keeps such children safe and happy. But when we reach puberty and can understand we are thrust out and sold away from our ancestral gods and from our parents. Some go to strange men's homes, others to foreigners, some to joyless houses, some to hostile. All this once the first night has yoked us to our husband we are forced to praise and say all is well."