more honoured in Homeric times, the social arrangements implicit in Homer are in
essential respects thoroughly patriarchal. The sharp division between the sexes is
marked in the architectural design of the Greek house itself, for women had separate
quarters, the gynaeconitis.This division is certainly apparent in the social as in the
political arrangements of the Athenians.
Direct evidence for the social implications of this division is hard to come by, for
all the main texts and images in sculpture or on vases are composed by men.
However, the legal position of an Athenian woman emerges quite clearly; it was
similar to that of a child who had not yet come of age. She was always under the rule
or guardianship of her father in his lifetime, or after his death of her brothers, or, if
they were under age, of her next of kin, her nearest male family relative, her kyrios.
Orphan girls with no immediate male kin were provided with a kyriosby the state. If
when her father died, there were no brothers of the same father, she inherited the
estate as an epikleros,‘someone who went with the property’; she could not own it in
her own right. The dictionary definition of the word epiklerosexplains: ‘At Athens, the
next male of kin was entitled to marry an heiress, or, if there was no inheritance or a
small one, he was bound by law either to marry her or endow her from his own estate;
in order to marry her, he was enabled to divorce his existing wife; and in case of
several claimants, the case was tried at law.’ The next of kin rule meant that marriages
between cousins or between uncle and niece were not uncommon. Anyone who
married an epikleroshad guardianship of the property, which was destined to go to
her male heirs.
In normal circumstances, it was the kyrioswho was legally entitled to arrange
the marriage of a woman or girl. In the majority of cases it would not have occurred
to the Athenians to give any power of choice to the woman, or girl, for in most cases
women were married at an early age, from fifteen onwards, or perhaps earlier. Nor
was there usually any question of two people ‘falling in love’; marriage was very much
abusiness arrangement involving two people who may have been scarcely
acquainted.
As a general rule, a dowry came with the bride and had to be returned in the
event of any failure of the marriage, so that the dowry, particularly if large, could be
considered to be something of a safeguard for the woman. The dowry was clearly
the daughter’s share of her paternal estate, which she could not inherit in her own
right. It was intended to enable the husband to support his wife and provide the
necessities of life for her and their children. In the event of the death of the husband,
the wife returned to the kyriaof her father’s house, or if her sons had come of age,
she might choose to live with them. They were legally obliged to support their mother
and could be subject to prosecution if they failed to do so. The corollary of her
permanent disability before the law was the legal requirement to guardianship on the
part of her own family. In the interrogation of candidates for the archonship cited
128 THE GREEKS