Essay on the Role of Women in Ancient Greece - 14417 Words

Econ Gov (2009) 10:221–245 DOI 10.1007/s10101-009-0059-x ORIGINAL PAPER â€Å"Rulers ruled by women†: an economic analysis of the rise and fall of women’s rights in ancient Sparta Robert K. Fleck  · F. Andrew Hanssen Received: 10 January 2008 / Accepted: 27 May 2008 / Published online: 20 March 2009  © Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract Until modern times, most women possessed relatively few formal rights. The women of ancient Sparta were a striking exception. Although they could not vote, Spartan women reportedly owned 40 percent of Sparta’s agricultural land, and enjoyed other rights that were equally extraordinary. We offer a simple economic explanation for the Spartan anomaly. The deï ¬ ning moment for Sparta was its conquest of a†¦show more content†¦In brief, we conclude that the unusual rights possessed by Spartan women resulted from the fact that these women were expected to perform tasks that were very valuable to men, and also very costly for men to monitor. By contrast, in most societies prior to the industrial revolution (including the rest of ancient Greece), the highest value use of women’s time (from a man’s perspective) was in tasks that either were easily monitored or had few incentive compatibility problems (i.e., raising children and other traditional †Å"women’s work†). Therefore, most 1 Quoted in Pomeroy (2002, p. 81). 2 Sparta produced little in the way of great art, architecture, or philosophy, and was famous primarily for its ï ¬ erce devotion to warfare. The historian Thucydides wrote, â€Å"If Sparta were deserted and only its temples and its ground plan left, future generations would never believe that its power had matched its reputation† (quoted in Forrest 1969, p. 28). 3 For an economic analysis of the political institutions of Athens and Sparta, see Fleck and Hanssen (2006). 4 Of course, there have always been individual women who had great power and enjoyed great wealth (e.g., Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, Catherine the Great). And, of course, many men in many societies have not been allowed to own property. But anything even approaching equalityShow MoreRelatedEssay about role of women in ancient greece and egypt2396 Words   |  10 Pages The Role of Women in Ancient Greece and Egypt Throughout history, most societies held women in an inferior status compared to that of men. This was often justified as being the natural result of biological differences between the sexes. 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