Alanna McLeod

Filling Vessels, Fulfilling Gender Roles

In Classical Greece, roles played by males and females in society were well-defined as well as very distinct from each other. Expectations to uphold these societal norms were strong, as a breakdown within the system could destroy the success of the oikos (the household) and the male’s reputation—two of the most important facets of Athenian life. The key to a thriving oikos and an unblemished reputation was a good wife who would efficiently and profitably run the household. It was the male’s role, however, to ensure excellent household management by molding a young woman into a good wife. Women were expected to enter the marriage as a symbolically empty vessel; in other words, a naïve, uneducated virgin of about 15 years who could be easily shaped by a husband twice her age. Through the instruction of her husband, the empty vessel would be filled with the necessary information to become a good wife who would maintain an orderly household and her husband’s reputation, thereby fulfilling the Athenian female gender role for citizen women.

In order for a young woman to be marriageable—unadulterated, inexperienced, and unknowing—she had to have been raised in an extremely sheltered environment, given little contact with the world beyond her father’s household. In Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, the husband, Ischomachos describes his new wife to Socrates:

How Socrates . . . could she have known anything when I

took her, since she came to me when she was not yet fifteen,

and had lived previously under diligent supervision in order

that she might see and hear as little as possible and ask the

fewest possible questions (Oeconomicus, VII 5)?

Although it is questionable to what extent girls were kept in the dark growing up—Ischomachos mentions that his wife did come to him knowing how to make woolen clothing and how to cook—it is apparent that it was undesirable for young females to be educated before being handed over to their husbands. This practice of sheltering girls probably stemmed from the male view that females are easily influenced and corrupted by forces in the outside world. This belief is exhibited in cases of adultery that nearly always fault the man as the seducer and treat the woman as a non-agent. (It is interesting to note that the Greek word for adulterer, moichos, is solely male). In On the Killing of Eratosthenes the Seducer, Euphiletus explains to the jury why the law allows for the seducer in adultery cases to be punished by death:

His idea was that those who use force are loathed by the

persons violated, whereas those who have got their way

by persuasion corrupt women’s minds, in such a way as

to make other men’s wives more attached to themselves

than to their husbands . . . (The Murder of Herodes, p. 49).

Like children, young women were believed to lack strength of mind and could, therefore, be easily won over. Fearing that females would be unable to ward off vices in the surrounding world, males felt it necessary to keep them contained indoors, protected by the household, so as not to leave them vulnerable to corruption.

In much the same way that a woman was not held responsible for acts of adultery, neither was she held responsible for mistakes resulting from her assumed ignorance. If a husband neglected to inform his wife of a household matter, he was to blame for the resulting blunder. A situation such as this is described in the Oeconomicus when Ischomachos’s wife is unable to find a household item for which he had asked. Ischomachos says to his wife,

But you aren’t at fault in this . . . rather I am, since I handed

over these things to you without giving orders as to where

each kind of thing should be put, so that you would know

where to put them and where to find them again (Oeconomicus,

VIII 2).

The fact that men took responsibility for their wives’ ignorance-based mistakes is reasonable, as it is consistent with their belief that women should enter their households as empty vessels that must be filled with knowledge.

As the sheltered young woman entered her husband’s household, her role became that of student and her husband’s that of teacher, a relationship that would only be successful if both husband and wife performed their roles with fidelity. Because success was so vital, husbands and wives prayed and made sacrifices to ensure fruitful teaching that would result in fruitful learning. As Ischomachos explained, “. . . she promised before the gods that she would become what she ought to be, and made it evident that she would not neglect the things she was being taught (Oeconomicus, VII 8).”

Perhaps the most important idea that the wife supposedly learned from her husband was the maintenance of order within the oikos. A woman’s unstable womb was considered a physical manifestation of her natural tendency toward disorder—a trait that the husband needed to correct for his wife to become an efficient manager of a secure household. Ischomachos told his wife, “There is nothing, woman, as useful or fine for human beings as order (Oeconomicus, VIII 3).” And to instill order, Ischomachos suggests,

If you would rather avoid this confusion, woman, and want

to know how to manage our substance accurately, how to find

easily whatever is needed for use, and how to oblige me by

giving me whatever I ask for, then let us choose a place that is

appropriate for each kind of thing . . . (Oeconomicus, VIII 10).

This emphasis on “a place for everything and everything in its place” as assigned by the husband so his wife will not suffer confusion assumes women’s supreme ignorance, for after one spends some time in a place (in this case, a household), one is generally quite capable of learning and remembering the layout and the location of items without extensive instruction. In classical Athens, however, much like filling a woman’s womb with sperm was thought to steady her physical chaos, filling a wife’s mental vessel with the teachings of her husband was the correct means thought to lead the woman in the direction of order. Ischomachos appears to have chosen a worthy, capable woman, as he makes his wife out to be an eager learner: “What else did she do if not promise to be diligent, manifest her very great pleasure . . . and ask me to order things separately as quickly as possible in the way I had stated (Oeconomicus, IX 1).” A high-minded, ideal woman was not one who engaged in independent thinking or self-sufficiency, but instead one who carried out her husbands requests in a timely, precise manner.

Once the husband felt he had done his job as teacher and his wife had learned to carry out the necessary responsibilities in the household, he entrusted her almost entirely with its management. Specifically, confident in his own ability to transfer the idea of order to his wife’s consciousness, the husband left his wife in charge of the preservation of the oikos’s order. Handing off this role to his wife, Ischomachos explicated,

I suggested that my wife consider herself a guardian of the

laws regarding the things in the house; that she inspect the

implements whenever it seems best to her . . . that she test

the fitness of each thing . . . (Oeconomicus, IX 15).

To entrust a woman with the household was an act of extreme faith—if the household ceased to be profitable, the husband’s (as well as the whole family’s) livelihood would be destroyed along with his public reputation.

There exists a dichotomy between giving the woman no agency or responsibility in certain circumstances, such as cases of adultery or mistakes resulting from ignorance, and putting her in charge of the husband’s household. Perhaps the resolution for this noteworthy dichotomy is found in the notion that ultimately men were in command in all situations: Ischomachos’s wife says, “For my guarding and distribution of the indoor things would look somewhat ridiculous, I suppose, if it weren’t your concern to bring in something from outside (Oeconomicus, VII 39).” This suggests that even though the wife was the indoor household manager, she was still obeying her husband’s orders that were the driving force of her own agency within the oikos.

Making the transition from living a naïve existence under the protection of the father to presiding over the oikos under the supervision of the husband was the essential social norm for youthful citizen Athenian women. It is unsurprising, then, that in a patriarchal society, the young female could only fulfill her societal role as manager of the oikos when her assumed empty vessel was filled by her husband with the proper knowledge.