Context from Document (Greece)

Question 1

Views on prostitution?

Answer 1

Prostitution was morally acceptable and legal, only called into question if it was concerned with the diminution of the estate.

Question 2

What was a hetaerae?

Answer 2

A ‘courtesan’ or ‘female companion’. Similar to a modern day mistress, she would accompany men and tended to sexual favours and conversation. However, hetaerae were not virgins and tending to be metic (people from outside Greece who were afforded some citizenship rights) meaning men could not be seen in public with one.

Question 3

Which women could attend symposiums?

Answer 3

‘Flute girls’ who would play instruments or dance, slaves girls would clean up and hetaerae could attend also. Sex at a symposium would take place in an anteroom. However, there are only two full accounts on a symposium.

Question 4

What did Socrates say about symposiums?

Answer 4

“Except in matters of physical strength and judgement, women’s nature was in no way inferior to man’s.”

Question 5

What did hetaerae or prostitutes do at retirment?

Answer 5

Due to the short career of a sex worker due to ‘fading beauty’ many would by slave girls or take in abandoned infant females and raise them to be in the business.

Question 6

Why did some men not have hetaerae?

Answer 6

Due to the expense of them, men instead would sexually exploit people within the oikos like slave girls, which was considered commonplace.
-> however most men of notoriety had at some point had a hetaerae

Question 7

What was the purpose of an oikos?

Answer 7

Procreation in order to sustain the family line which then entailed the handing down of families assets through generations.

Question 8

What was the upbringing like for Ancient Greek children?

Answer 8

Highly segregated and restrictive to ensure purity. Parents would arrange marriages when the perspective spouses were still children. Girls were married off as teenagers, boys had to wait till they could inherit assets so they were usually in their 20’s-30’s.

Question 9

Sexual freedom for women

Answer 9

Had to be virgins at marriage and were required to produce male heirs. Fidelity was important to ensure legitimate paternity, meaning women tended to be kept in the confines of the domestic sphere and had to be chaperoned before marriage. Once they hit puberty, they were expected to where modesty clothing.

Question 10

Sexual freedom for men

Answer 10

Young, freeborn men were encourage by peers, hormonal development and high mortality rates to conduct sexual experimentation early on in life. Due to the length of bachelorhood, many sexual outlets carried on into married life such as: slaves girls, hetaerae or homosexual relations.