Ancient Sparta, Women's Studies

Spartan woman is a special female group in the ancient Greece。They are different from the other Greece women in the cultural, political and social aspects. These special characters mainly lie on the unique Spartan cultural and social systems. In this paper, I try hard to see about the relationships between Spartan women and family, education, and polis. My purpose is to deepen the holistic study of them, and make us have a more complete knowledge of Spartan politics, economy and culture.This paper consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, the chief emphasis is the relationships between Spartan women and their families. Because of the special marriage consuetude and the gender ideals effect by the military condition, their succession and the role of mothers, Spartan women took up important status in their families. However, Spartan women's dual status can't be overlooked. They looked free, but more subjected and compliant.In the second chapter, I probe into the relationship between Spartan women and the polis from the perspective of education. The educational system is different from the others'cities in ancient Greece. Its trends that focused on girls'culture and physical education were significant to develop their social roles. In this system, they were lettered and healthy, which improved their status greatly. On the other hand, its military education made obvious effects on the Spartan architecture style, religion and civism.In the third chapter, I expatiate on the relationship between Spartan women and the polis. The women played an important role in the politics, especially the royal women, who made great effect to the political. They also took part in the religion celebrations and played basilic role in some ones. However, there were a great number of lower classes women at Sparta, including helots, free noncitizens, slave women and so on. As a part of Spartan women, they also play important roles at Sparta.Finally, I probe into the connections between Spartan women and the rise-and-fall of Sparta. In my opinion, we should treat their status comprehensively and dialectically.