Chapter Title: Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life

Book Title: Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

Book Author(s): James Robson
Published by: Edinburgh University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.3366/j.ctvxcrq1q.7

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edinburgh University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 PartI

Debates

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 This content downloaded from
157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CHAPTER 1

Sexual Unions: Marriage and

Domestic Life

1.1 Introduction
Marriage was a hot topic in classical Athens. In 451 BC, Pericles
famously proposed a law stipulating that, for a man to be an Athenian
citizen, both his parents must be true-born Athenians - and not just
his father, as had previously been the case (Aristotle A and Plutarch
C). The reasons behind the introduction of this law are obscure (it
receives little mention in contemporary sources), but one of its imme-
diate effects must have been to elevate the status of Athenian women
above that of the numerous women of foreign extraction living in
Athens at that time. In order to produce children who could claim full
rights in the city, a citizen had now to choose his wife from among a
relatively small pool of women, and whereas a poor Athenian father
might previously have struggled to find a husband for his daughter, his
chances were now greatly increased (on this law, see Patterson 1981
and 2005; French 1994; Ogden 1996, 59-69). The rules of Pericles'
citizenship law were occasionally relaxed, especially during the war-
ravaged years of the late fifth century, in order to expand the depleted
citizen body, and exceptions were occasionally made for individuals,
too, most famously for Pericles himself, whose son by his foreign mis-
tress, Aspasia, was granted citizenship (Plutarch, Life of Pericles 37). In
403 BC, however, once the Peloponnesian War was over, the citizen-
ship law was reinstated. Moreover, at some point towards the middle
of the fourth century Athens' laws were strengthened further, with the
result that it became positively illegal for an Athenian citizen to marry
a non-Athenian (Demosthenes N and T: on the dating of these legal
reforms, see Sealey 1990, 17-19).
This brief summary of the changing nature of marriage laws reveals
the keen interest which classical Athenians took in questions of citizen-
ship, but barely hints at another contemporary obsession: inheritance.

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
4 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

The provision of legitimate - and preferably male - offspring was

a major concern to citizen men and women alike and questions of
inheritance would often inform the choice of marriage partners. In
short, then, legal rules about citizenship and familial concerns with
inheritance would routinely serve to dictate the person with whom you
shared your marriage bed.
Citizenship and inheritance are two angles from which to approach
the topic of Athenian marriage, but in order to build up a rounded
picture of this institution, other, more homely considerations need
to be taken into account, too. After all, marriage entails a whole array
of practical arrangements: a betrothal, a wedding, the setting up of
a marital home and - importantly in a Greek context - a dowry. All
these details will be explored in the first sections of this chapter, along
with questions such as how marriage partners were selected and the
age at which men and women were wed. Further practicalities will be
examined when we come to look at the mechanisms which existed for
divorce, the consequences of the death of a partner, and remarriage.
Importantly, too, the emotional and sexual side of the married couple's
relationship will be considered, though here the nature of our sources
(not least their male, upper-class bias) means that the realities of life
for many sections of society are inevitably difficult to reconstruct - a
further complication being that relations between husband and wife
presumably varied not only from marriage to marriage but also from
one stage of their lives to the next. We shall also look at those Athenian
inheritance laws which had greatest impact on marriage and family
life, especially the legislation surrounding the 'heiress' (epikleros), i.e. a
woman who found herself in the position of being first in line to inherit
the family estate. Famously, Athenian law could require a woman's
summary divorce from her husband and remarriage to a close member
of kin in order to secure the line of succession.
Owing to the nature of our sources, this chapter is strongly skewed
towards the experience of citizens in Athens. As a rule, ancient writers
display little interest in the sex lives and marriage practices of other
sections of society such as slaves and metics (i.e. resident foreigners
and their descendants), except where these impinge on citizen lives.
The discussion in the final sections of this chapter will nevertheless
explore social categories such as the pallake ('concubine') and the
nothos/nothe ('bastard'), which lie at the fringes of the citizen life in
Athens, and the marriage of non-citizens will also be considered. The
term 'citizen' itself is not unproblematic either. Only an adult man
could play a full role in the democratic institutions of classical Athens

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 5

as a citizen (astos/polites), of course. But in this chapter I shall follow

the practice of ancient authors in referring to a woman who was the
wife, daughter, mother or sister of an Athenian man as a 'citizen' (aste;
sometimes politis), too, thus distinguishing this social group from
other women in the city.
Central to any discussion of family life in ancient Athens are the
concepts of oikos and kyrios. Oikos (pl. oikoi) is often translated
'household', but this word essentially has three overlapping mean-
ings: namely a family's 'house', its 'property' and the 'family' itself
(D. M. MacDowell 1989, 10; Cox 1998, 132). Oikos membership is not
always clear-cut, however, and a married woman in particular often
had allegiances to more than one oikos: both her marital oikos and the
oikos of her birth. The kyrios (pl. kyrioi) is the name given to the head
of a household. Always an adult male, the kyrios was the present owner
and custodian of the family's estate and possessions (including slaves)
and was the legal protector both of his children and of any women
who belonged to his oikos (women and children were able neither to
represent themselves at law nor to administer large sums of money or
property: this required a kyrios). For a married woman, her kyrios was
her husband, and outside marriage the role was traditionally played
by a woman's father - unless he was dead, in which case these duties
would have been assumed by her nearest male relative. In discussions
of Athenian marriage practices, it is often assumed that a woman was
given away in marriage by her father, but in his absence we find exam-
ples of this act being performed by a grandfather, brother, uncle and
even a son.

1.2 Selecting the bride (and groom)

Kinship, geography and the circles in which your father moved seem to
have been the major factors determining whom you married in classi-
cal Athens. One of the most common fates for a girl was to be married
to her paternal uncle or cousin, with marriage to a half-brother also a
possibility as long as the two siblings were born of different mothers
(Themistocles' son and daughter from different wives married each
other, for example: see Cox 1998, 216-19; see also Demosthenes L).
One way to understand the prevalence in classical Athens of endog-
amy, i.e. marriage within the family group, is in terms of inheritance,
since this ensured that property would remain within the confines of
a fairly narrow bloodline (namely that of the father's family: marriage
of a girl to her matrilineal relatives was far less common). Exogamy,

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
6 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

on the other hand, i.e. marriage to members outside the family group,
could potentially be used to shore up allegiances with individuals with
whom the family had a close association or shared a common cause.
And so another common scenario we find is for a girl to be married to
a member of a neighbour's household or for a close friendship between
two males to be cemented by the marriage of two men's kin (e.g. Isaeus
B). As Cox demonstrates in her 1998 book, Household Interests, there
is ample evidence of intermarriage between families whose estates
had a common boundary, for example, or who had shared property
interests in a particular locality (Cox 1998, xv-xvi, 27 and 38-67). Her
study also shows that family groups often practised both endogamy
and exogamy when marrying off their daughters, suggesting that they
were careful to get the balance right between protecting their inherit-
ance interests and building links with neighbours and associates (Cox
1998, 21-2 and 28-37).
This somewhat unromantic view of marital ties - as informed by
familial concerns about inheritance on the one hand and social alle-
giances on the other - usefully serves to reveal some of the realities
underpinning married life in classical Athens. In this light it is also
worth noting that arranging the match was the job of the girl's kyrios
(normally her father), who was evidently under no obligation to consult
the girl herself. Nor was it only his daughters' marriages that a father
would oversee: it seems to have been quite normal for a man's father,
if he was still alive, to take an active interest in arranging a match for
his son, too. Accounts of a father's actions in seeking a bride for his
son (e.g. Demosthenes F and Isaeus E) often emphasize the role of
consultation and persuasion, however - a quality we also find hinted at
in descriptions of suitors asking for the hand of a girl from her guard-
ians (e.g. Isaeus B). A further insight we find into the ideology which
lay behind a father's choice of son-in-law comes from a speech of
Demosthenes where the considerations mentioned are the worthiness
of the match, convention and opinion (Demosthenes A): even if the
bride-to-be was not consulted (unlike the prospective groom), a father
is nevertheless likely to have considered himself to be acting in the girl's
best interests. Interestingly, too, there are references in our sources to
matchmakers, older women who were presumably employed when a
father was unable to find a suitable candidate for his offspring to marry.
The unlikely union of the rustic Strepsiades and his well-heeled urban
wife in Aristophanes' Clouds, for example, is said to be the result of a
matchmaker's work (Aristophanes AI; cf. Xenophon E).
It is tempting, then, to think of Athenian marriages as arranged by

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 7

men in the interests of men, with the wishes of the girl neither sought
nor taken into account. However, this may be to overlook the influence
exerted by family members such as the girl's mother and, indeed, the
girl herself (Dover 1974, 211). Given the narrow range of individuals
an Athenian girl could generally be expected to marry - close family
members, members of neighbours' households, family friends - there
is every reason to suppose that the bride and groom would at least have
seen each other, and perhaps even interacted with each other, at some
stage in their lives prior to the betrothal and wedding. From previous
contact with the prospective husband, many a father would be in a
position to take an informed view as to the suitability of the match for
his daughter, as would other members of his household - although the
extent to which his own or others' opinions on such matters held sway
is of course a matter of speculation. In the comedies of Menander (first
staged in the late fourth century BC), we even find examples of roman-
tic love leading to marriage, including one instance of a couple who,
having grown up together, have come to expect that they will be wed
(Menander K). Indeed, on the evidence of Menander's plays, Brown
has surmised that 'there were chances for both boys and girls to form
preferences (however inadequately based) about possible marriage
partners, and perhaps also to communicate these preferences to their
parents' (Brown 1993, 202). As Brown himself points out, however,
in these same comedies, we also find instances of marriages being
arranged with little or no consultation of the parties involved (Brown
1993, 199). Dover's view that 'in the middle and lower classes young
men and girls . . . had a habit of getting their own way . . . despite the
formal authority of their fathers' is one reading of our data (Dover
1974, 211). But it is also plausible that, by including in his plays mar-
riages underpinned by romantic attachments, Menander was present-
ing his audience with something of an escapist fantasy (and a strange
fantasy at that to modern tastes since, as we shall see in Chapter 4.7,
these same plays regularly include instances of sexual assault).
Any debate about the extent to which the concept of romantic
love existed in the classical era is further complicated by the fact that
attitudes towards intimacy evidently shifted in Athens throughout
the fifth and fourth century, although the exact nature of changes in
social attitudes is hugely difficult to capture. Certainly it is a complex
picture that emerges from our sources. To take the example of vase-
painting, there is a distinct shift away from explicit erotic imagery after
the sixth century, with fifth-century painters taking a greater interest
in psychology and domestic life (sexual scenes become increasingly

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
8 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

rare after 475 BC and all but disappear by 450 BC). This culminates
towards the end of the fifth century in nuptial scenes which convey, as
one scholar puts it, a 'romantic and idealized notion of heterosexual
love' (Fantham et al. 1994, 101; on nuptial eros see also Sutton 1997/8
and Stafford 2013). In popular drama, however, it is in this very same
era, the late fifth century, that the use of obscenity and overt sexuality
reaches its peak, as can be gleaned from study of the Old Comedy of
Aristophanes (see e.g. Aristophanes AZ and BK). By the late fourth
century, this earthy exuberance has given way to the largely genteel
subject matter of Menander's New Comedy, with its more measured
language and romantic love plots, and where spontaneous sexual acts
routinely have their consequences (see e.g. Menander L). In short,
our sources do not paint a wholly consistent picture and nor, perhaps,
should we expect them to.

1.3 Betrothal (engye)

In the normal course of events, before a marriage took place linking
two citizen families, the bride's kyrios would promise the woman to
her future husband in an act known as engye or engyesis - normally
translated 'engagement' or 'betrothal'. This was no 'engagement' in
the modern western sense of the word, however, rather a pledge made
by the woman's current legal guardian to her future legal guardian,
with the engye requiring neither the woman's consent nor, indeed, her
physical presence at the event. Evidently this pledge was not binding:
we know of a number of examples of couples whose engye did not ulti-
mately lead to marriage (e.g. those of Demosthenes' mother and sister:
Demosthenes E), but nowhere do we hear of any penalty for breaking
the betrothal off. Nevertheless, the engye constituted a key part of the
process by which an Athenian man and a woman came to be seen as a
legally married couple.
The importance of the engye is perhaps most evident in fourth-
century courtroom disputes about inheritance where the citizen status
of certain individuals is in question (and thus the rights of them and
their children to inherit). In legal speeches, evidence of the engye
was often provided - in the form of witnesses who had attended the
ceremony - in order to underline that the marital union of which
the individual was the offspring had been carried out according to
established traditions (curiously, witnesses to the wedding itself are
never produced in court to confirm the legality of a marriage, however:
Ogden 1996, 84-5). There are, perhaps, two factors which serve to

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 9

make the engye so significant. First, an engye could mark the differ-
ence between marriage and mere co-habitation: a man might happen
to live with a woman (as a concubine, for example: see 1.15 below)
but an engye signalled that their relationship was on a more formal
footing. The second consideration is the fact that, following the various
reforms to Athenian marriage law in the fifth and fourth centuries, it
was only citizen women who were eligible to be pledged to citizen men
in an engye; that is to say, for a woman to be a gyne engyete ('betrothed
woman'/'wife pledged in an engye') she had not only to be acknowl-
edged by her natal family as a true-born Athenian, but also accepted as
such by the family into which she married. Crucially, the offspring of a
marriage by engye were 'legitimate' (gnesios) true-born Athenians, who
would grow up to enjoy citizen rights, whereas the offspring of other
unions were generally destined to be nothoi, 'illegitimate'/'bastards'
(Just 1989, 44-5; Ogden 1996, 62: on nothoi see 1.15 below).
The age at which a woman was pledged to her future husband
could vary enormously, as the example of Demosthenes' family neatly
illustrates. Just before he died, Demosthenes' father pledged his five-
year-old daughter to one nephew of his (the girl's cousin) and at the
same time pledged his wife to another nephew (Demosthenes E).
The circumstances surrounding this double betrothal are unusual,
however, and in the normal scheme of things the engye probably took
place just before the wedding (Just 1989, 49; Blundell 1995, 115) - and
not when the bride was still a small child. The relationship of the man
to the woman whom he was pledging could also differ. According to
a law cited by Demosthenes, the expectation was for a woman to be
betrothed by her father, paternal grandfather or a brother sired by the
same father (Demosthenes J), but clearly other close male relatives
could assume this duty, too, if they were the woman's legal kyrios. We
have already met the example of Demosthenes' father pledging his wife
(as well as his daughter) on his deathbed, and we find instances of a
betrothal being overseen by a stepfather (albeit with the consent of the
girl's young brother: Isaeus 9.29), as well as jointly by a woman's broth-
ers (Isaeus B; here as elsewhere, the word ekdosis is used to describe
the act of marrying a woman off - literally 'giving away' a woman in
marriage - from the verb ekdidomi: see Just 1989, 71-2).
There are two sources which give us the words spoken by a
girl's kyrios when performing the engye. One of these is Herodotus'
Histories, where we find our earliest specific reference to an Athenian
marriage: the wedding of Megacles and Agariste, the daughter of
Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, which took place in the mid-sixth

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
10 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

century BC. The words of Cleisthenes' pledge to Megacles are quoted

by the historian (Herodotus B), but these are perhaps neither typical
nor illustrative of Athenian practice, not least because the pledge is
made by a non-Athenian. A more reliable source for the words spoken
at the engye is probably Menander's New Comedy, where we find the
same formula repeated in more than one play (albeit with slight vari-
ations); namely, the woman's father saying to the future bridegroom,
'I give (her) to you for the cultivation (lit. 'ploughing') of legitimate
children' (e.g. Menander C; see Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 531). For
some scholars the wording of the pledge is significant as it casts the
woman in the role of a possession (a piece of land) and a passive object,
in contrast to the man who is her owner and takes on the active role
of ploughing (e.g. Patterson 1991, 52). No doubt, the ideas of fertility
and reproduction evoked in these words are also suggestive, however
(Blundell 1995, 122). Not all scholars are convinced that a standard
form of words existed for the engye: A. R. W. Harrison suggests that all
that was required from the two parties was 'some expressions of inten-
tion' (A. R. W. Harrison 1968-71, 18).

1.4 The bride's dowry

The engye was usually the point at which the bride's father handed over
the dowry (proix) to the woman's future kyrios, her husband-to-be
(Blundell 1995, 115). The dowry was essentially a sum of money (some-
times property, too: Cox 1998, 76) which was set aside by a father for
his daughter's upkeep and represented a woman's share of her paternal
inheritance (although a lesser share than would be received by a son:
Golden 1990, 174). Whilst there was no legal requirement to provide a
dowry, it was nevertheless customary for a substantial sum of money
to follow the bride to her new home: this was entrusted to her new
guardian to provide for her material needs for the duration of the mar-
riage. There is debate as to the extent to which the legal prohibitions
on women owning and administering large sums of money in Athens
were occasionally flouted (Sealey 1990, 37-40 and 42-9), but certainly
the general expectation was that a citizen woman in Athens did not
undertake major financial transactions (Isaeus M): this was the job of
her kyrios. The dowry, then, was essentially available for the husband to
draw on and invest as he saw fit, and in many ways to treat as part of his
own estate, but with one important proviso: if he and his wife divorced
or she died childless, the dowry had to be returned to her natal family.
If he failed to do so, he was required to pay interest on the dowry at the

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 11

rate of 9 obols a month per 100 drachmas (i.e. 18 per cent per annum)
until his debt was cleared (Demosthenes T and Demosthenes 27.17;
A. R. W. Harrison 1968-71, 55-9).
For an Athenian father, the provision of a generous dowry was an
opportunity to make a show of his wealth to the broader community
(Lacey 1968, 109; Schaps 1979, 74-5). Whilst the dowries of society's
poorest girls could no doubt be modest, the average size of a dowry
amongst elite families in the classical era was around 30 to 40 minas
(i.e. 3,000-4,000 drachmas: Cox 1998, 75; cf. Demosthenes E, Isaeus
B and L and Menander C). Some dowries could be a good deal more.
Alcibiades, for instance, is said to have received the famously large
sum of 10 talents when he married Hipparete (i.e. 60,000 drachmas:
Andocides B and Plutarch A). Estimates vary, but the sum handed over
in respect of a daughter's marriage might perhaps represent between 5
per cent and 20 per cent of the father's wealth (Schaps 1979, 78; Leduc
1992, 279-80), the size of the dowry presumably determined in part
by the number of children between whom a father's estate had to be
divided. The attraction of wealth to potential suitors evidently led to an
element of competition in the provision of dowries; or in other words,
to attach a large sum of money to a girl made her a more attractive
proposition and could help to secure an advantageous match. In turn,
a sizeable dowry no doubt provided the woman with a certain degree of
security and influence within her new marriage and made the prospect
of divorce that much less appealing for her husband (Euripides B; cf.
Andocides B and Plutarch A). What is more, a generous dowry might
also encourage what Cox calls 'marital intimacy' (Cox 1998, 70). Since
it was her offspring who inherited the money on their mother's death,
the only way for the husband to ensure that the dowry would remain
the property of his oikos was for the couple to have children.
It was not just first-time brides who were provided with dowries
in classical Athens: they would also be provided to men who married
widows and divorcees (see Demosthenes E and Isaeus L; Hunter 1989,
295). While the inability to furnish a woman with a sizeable dowry
could evidently be a source of embarrassment and regret for a family
(see e.g. Isaeus L), for a man to marry a girl whose dowry was small
or non-existent could conversely be presented as a noble act worthy
of praise (e.g. Lysias 19.14-18). We find examples, too, of friends and
extended family contributing to the dowry of a girl of poor parents
as well as the city of Athens providing a dowry for the daughters of
men who had served the state (Plutarch, Life of Aristides 27; Aeschines
3.258). Indeed, there appear to have been specific laws in place in

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
12 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

Athens which ensured that orphaned girls and daughters of the poor
could obtain a dowry (Isaeus A and Demosthenes W).

1.5 The wedding rituals

As various scholars have suggested, the rituals which marked the mar-
riage of the bride and groom in ancient Athens would not have held
the legal significance of a modern wedding ceremony (e.g. Maffi 2005,
254). Since weddings were neither presided over by a representative of
the state nor officially registered, a marriage was essentially judged to be
legitimate by virtue of the couple having gone through various stages in
their relationship, including the betrothal, 'living together' (synoikein)
and, ideally, the production of offspring (paidopoiein). So, as Cynthia
Patterson puts it, marriage is perhaps best regarded as a 'social process
rather than a legal moment' (Patterson 1998, 109) - albeit a process
in which the wedding ceremony had an important role to play, not
least in terms of the ritual and emotional lives of the married couple,
their friends, families and the community at large. Significantly for the
bride, her wedding also marked the point at which she left her natal
home to be incorporated into a new oikos - that of her marital family -
and gained a new kyrios in the form of her husband. For most women
marriage would also have entailed their sexual initiation (unlike the
older groom, who is likely to have gained sexual experience prior to his
wedding). For a first-time bride, then, her wedding was a rite of passage
from girlhood to adulthood in more ways than one.
The wedding rituals were divided into three distinct phases: the pro-
aulia (preparations), the gamos or 'wedding' itself (including the feast
and procession), and epaulia (celebrations after the wedding night).
In its canonical form, a wedding seems to have lasted three days - one
day for each of these phases (Cantarella 2005a, 246) - though we find
examples of celebrations taking place over a longer period as well as
weddings being completed in a day and a night (Oakley and Sinos
1993, 10). The information we have about marriage celebrations in
ancient Greece is vast, since the wedding (gamos) surfaces as a motif in
numerous sources, most notably in lyric poetry, drama and Athenian
vase-painting. In the absence of a single authoritative account from
the classical era, however, there is inevitably a certain amount of
uncertainty as to the precise order of events and the exact nature of
the rituals practised by fifth- and fourth-century Athenians - which
may, in any case, have varied from wedding to wedding. The follow-
ing account of Athenian marriage rituals is based largely on the study

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 13

of The Wedding in Ancient Athens by Oakley and Sinos (1993), who

synthesize a large number of disparate sources.
Essential elements of every marriage ceremony included appeas-
ing the gods, the ritual preparation and adornment of the bride and
groom, feasting, the ceremonial transfer of the bride to her marital
home, and the couple's first night together in the marriage chamber.
The initial sacrifices to the gods of marriage - Zeus Teleios, Hera
Teleia, Artemis, Aphrodite and Peitho (Persuasion) - were evidently
a cause for celebration and an occasion for music, dancing and the
singing of marriage songs (Euripides I). This was followed by the ritual
bathing and adornment of each partner, which in the case of the bride
constituted a particular focus of interest for vase-painters in the fifth
century. One common scene shows the solemn procession undertaken
by the companions of the bride to fetch water for the bath, and surviv-
ing examples of the type of jug used for this purpose, the loutrophoros,
are typically painted with wedding imagery. A more popular subject
still on red-figure vases is the adornment of the bride by her compan-
ions, who are often shown carrying boxes containing perfume and
jewellery, one key moment of the bride's preparation being the binding
of the woman's hair (Fig. 1; see also Fig. 2). Such 'adornment' scenes
are particularly popular in the second half of the fifth century (Blundell
and Rabinowitz 2008, 136; but see also Lewis 2002, 135, who ques-
tions whether all adornment scenes are necessarily wedding-related).
For the wedding, the bride would be dressed in a crown and a veil
and would wear special shoes called nymphides (one detail we lack is
the colour of the dress, however - no literary source directly informs
us of this and vase-painters fail to portray the dress in a distinctive
colour; Llewellyn-Jones argues that the veil was most likely of a reddish
hue: Llewellyn-Jones 2003, 223-7; cf. Oakley and Sinos 1993, 16). A
common feature in bridal scenes on vases is the presence of an Eros
figure, often taken as suggestive of the seductive powers of which the
bride is possessed (Sutton 1992, 27; Oakley and Sinos 1993, 19-20 and
47; Lewis 2002, 144; see also Stafford 2013 for discussion). To add to
their allure, both partners would have been anointed with perfume,
and whilst the groom's bath and adornment are rarely depicted, we
nevertheless know that he wore a special cloak which was 'bright' and
intricately woven (Aristophanes, Peace 859; Wealth 530).
No vase-painting depicts the wedding feast, but it could clearly be a
rowdy affair (Plutarch F), and towards the end of the fourth century it
even became the subject of specific legislation restricting the number
of diners to thirty (Oakley and Sinos 1993, 22: this was perhaps aimed

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
14 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

at curbing ostentatious displays of wealth). The location of the meal

varied but evidence from New Comedy indicates that families often
collaborated to lay on the feast, which featured meat from the prenup-
tial sacrifices. Unusually, men and women dined together on this occa-
sion, albeit on different sides of the table, and at nightfall the bride's
father would unite the couple for the first time. This was perhaps the
occasion for the unveiling of the bride, too, the anakalypteria, though
the conflicting accounts we find in our sources means that the timing
of this event is uncertain (Oakley and Sinos 1993, 25-6; see Llewellyn-
Jones 2003, 227-47, on ancient accounts and modern views as to when
the anakalypteria took place, his own suggestion being that there were
multiple unveilings at different points in the ceremonies). Significantly,
the groom gave the bride a gift at her public unveiling which she for-
mally accepted - a detail which, it has been suggested, is symbolic of
the bride giving her consent to the union (Patterson 1991, 55).
A further major event was the torchlight procession conveying the
bride and groom to the marital oikos. An early description of this event
occurs in Homer (Homer A, where the role of song and dance is neatly
highlighted), and the procession was also a popular subject in vase-
painting (on black-figure vases, in particular, e.g. Figs 3 and 4). The
marital procession could either be accomplished on foot (the so-called
chamaipous) or in a cart (in vase-paintings depicting the latter we
occasionally find the bride accompanied not just by the groom but also
by what is perhaps a best-man figure, the two men protecting the bride
by sandwiching her between them as they ride along). Vase-paintings
sometimes contain another female figure, too, in addition to the bride,
generally taken to be a nympheutria, or 'bridesmaid'. Processions could
again prove rowdy events and served the important purpose of inform-
ing the wider community that the wedding had taken place.
From this point in the celebrations the groom's family home became
the focus of activity. The moment at which the bride entered the house
was a further signature moment and forms the subject of a number
of vase-paintings, where the bride's uncertainty is often apparent as
she is led inside by her new husband (e.g. Figs 5 and 6; cf. Sophocles
E). Following her arrival, the bride was incorporated into her new
oikos by a ritual known as the katachysmata (a ceremony also used
in respect of new slaves) during which she had dates, nuts, dried fruit
and figs poured over her head. Finally, the newly-weds would retire
to the previously adorned marital chamber, which would be guarded
for the night by a friend of the groom acting as a door-keeper. Friends
of the bride would also keep a vigil outside the door, providing a

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTCC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 15

comforting sound for the bride, perhaps, as they sang songs (Oakley
and Sinos 1993, 37). According to post-classical sources their singing
also muffled the sounds of the bride as she was violated by her husband
(scholiast on Theocritus 18) - the presence of the door-keeper serving
to 'prevent the women from helping the screaming bride' (Pollux
3.42). These post-classical notions of the violated, 'screaming' bride
are arguably at odds with the romanticized image of the bride we find
in Athenian vase-painting, however, where she is often accompanied
by the goddess Peitho ('Persuasion'), the emphasis here being on her
seductive charms, perhaps - or, alternatively, the seduction which is
practised upon her by the groom (see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 46-7,
and Stafford 2000, 135-8). The day following the wedding and this
sexual initiation was an occasion for further feasting, songs and dances
and was also the time for giving the gifts, the epaulia, which gave their
name to the whole day.
At some point subsequent to the wedding, the groom would tradi-
tionally hold another feast called the gamelia for his phratry (i.e. one of
the kinship groups to which most - if not all - male Athenian citizens
belonged). This put down a further marker that a legitimate wedding
had taken place and paved the way for any sons born to him from the
union to be enrolled in the phratry at a later date. Now the married
couple could be said to be 'living together' - synoikein - a word which,
in the absence of any more precise term (Aristotle H), effectively
denoted 'being married' in classical Athens (Demosthenes X; see Just
1989, 62-4 and Ogden 1996, 79-80). If a citizen man was living with
a woman who was not his legitimate wife - e.g. if she had not been
pledged in an engye or, after Pericles' citizenship law of 451 BC, if the
woman was non-Athenian by birth or descent - the relationship might
instead be described as 'being together' or 'co-habiting', syneinai. In
the eyes of the law, children born from such a union would normally
be classed as 'illegitimate' (nothoi), and enjoy only limited civil and
inheritance rights (see 1.15 below).

1.6 Men and women's age upon marriage

From the depictions of wedding processions and other marital scenes
we find on Greek vases, it would be easy to conclude that the age gap
between husband and wife was relatively small, since both are custom-
arily depicted in the bloom of youth (Figs 5 and 6). From our literary
sources we know that the reality was somewhat different, however,
and in the case of first marriages at least, the couple would typically be

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
16 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

made up of a teenage bride and an adult husband perhaps twice her

age or more.
Most modern scholars concur that the age of an Athenian girl at
the time of her wedding was usually fourteen, although some would
allow slightly more leeway: Lacey, for instance, suggests that girls
were married 'not later than 16' with a tendency 'to be earlier than
this rather than later' (Lacey 1968, 117), whereas Blundell suggests
that 'girls were probably married for the first time between fourteen
and eighteen' (Blundell 1995, 119). Certainly fourteen was the age
upon marriage of the bride in Xenophon's Oeconomicus whom her
husband, Ischomachus, must instruct in the management of the home
(Xenophon I). Fourteen has also been suggested as the average age in
Athens of menarche (i.e. the onset of periods: Amundsen and Diers
1969; Sourvinou-Inwood 1988, 25-8), and given the emphasis on
female virginity before marriage and the threat that a sexually mature
girl could potentially pose to her family's honour (the pubescent girl's
wild nature is often emphasized in our sources: e.g. Anacreon C), a
father's desire to marry off his daughter while she was still a young
teenager is perhaps understandable. This is not to say that all Athenians
considered marriage advisable at such a young age. Plato suggests that
women should marry between the ages of sixteen and twenty (Plato
E), for example, whereas Aristotle, who advocates marriage for girls
at about eighteen, warns that younger women are more likely to
have stunted and female offspring and are at greater risk of dying
in childbirth (Aristotle J). These suggestions by Plato and Aristotle
are probably best understood as attempts to correct contemporary
practice rather than to reflect it, however, and so do little to call into
question the hypothesis that Athenian brides were routinely young
teenagers.
For a man, the time for marriage seems to have been when he
was in his late twenties to mid-thirties. Ischomachus in Xenophon's
Oeconomicus is a man of roughly thirty years when he marries his
bride, and in his poetry the sixth-century statesman Solon advises
men to marry and have children between the ages of twenty-eight
and thirty-five (Solon, fr. 27.9-10 W = 23 G-P; Hesiod's advice, too,
is for men to marry at around thirty: Hesiod B). Plato's advice is in
a similar vein, namely for a man to marry between the ages of thirty
and thirty-five (Plato E). The highest age we find recommended is in
Aristotle, who advises men to marry at around thirty-seven (Aristotle
J; cf. Demosthenes F where we find an example of a peculiarly young
eighteen-year-old groom, albeit one whose father has special reason for

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 17

wanting him to marry quickly).

The age difference between husband and wife has been accounted for
in various ways by scholars. For Keuls, what she calls the 'premature
marriage' of girls, i.e. before they had reached full physical maturity,
was a 'technique for keeping women physically under control' (Keuls
1985, 103). Pomeroy, on the other hand, suggests that the require-
ments of military service meant that it was preferable for men to marry
late, and points out that a young widow could potentially serve as a
wife in multiple marriages and therefore provide heirs for more than
one household. In this way, she argues, the early age of marriage for
girls helped to make up for the low numbers of females in the popula-
tion (caused, she claims, by female infanticide - a suggestion that has
proven controversial - as well as a higher mortality rate among girls
than boys: Pomeroy 1975, 64; cf. Oldenziel 1987, 98-100). One theme
to emerge from ancient sources is that young girls are most easily
educated in the ways of the new household (Hesiod B; Xenophon's
Oeconomicus). For Strauss it is significant that an ageing man would
generally look to hand over the running of his house to his son before
he died (Strauss 1993, 67-70; cf. Aristotle J), since a gap of roughly
thirty years between generations would mean that a man in his early
sixties would hand over control to a son when he was around thirty
years of age. The point at which the son took over the management of
the household might thus seem an appropriate time of life for him to
take a wife and seek an heir of his own - one advantage of this arrange-
ment being that a young wife could play a role in looking after her
husband's ageing father. This is roughly the scenario we find in a legal
speech by Isaeus, for example, where the ageing Menecles adopts a son
who had recently married. Menecles proceeds to leave his new son in
charge of the oikos, while his new daughter-in-law helps to care for him
(Isaeus E). Whether many fathers lived long enough to 'retire' in this
way is another matter, however: Strauss estimates that only a third of
twenty-five-year-old men, and a fifth of thirty-year-olds, would have
had fathers who were still alive (Strauss 1993, 68). Perhaps significant,
too, is that it was at thirty that Athenian men gained their full quota
of citizen rights: before this age, a man was ineligible for civic roles
such as generalships and magistracies, as well as serving on juries and
Athens' Council (Boule).
Also hugely relevant to the question of when men and girls married,
no doubt, is the role of social expectation: unlike Plato and Aristotle,
who have their own suggestions to make, presumably few Athenians
thought to question the marriage practices of their city. Rather, for

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
18 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

most citizens, the assumption would be that they and their family
members would simply follow the established traditions of their
society. This said, there are at least some indications in comic drama
that the model of the twenty-eight- to thirty-five-year-old man marry-
ing a young teenage girl was not always adhered to. On the one hand,
we find a character in Menander scolding an older man for seeking a
young bride's hand in marriage rather than letting her marry someone
her own age (Menander K). On the other hand, we find an indication
in Aristophanes that old men marrying young brides was not at all
unknown (Aristophanes BF). Indeed, there is every reason to suppose
that age in itself was not a bar to men finding wives, whereas for girls,
the age range during which it was open for them to marry for the first
time may have been relatively narrow (Aristophanes AW).

1.7 Divorce
Whilst, in the words of one scholar, 'divorce was easy' in classical
Athens (Lacey 1968, 108), it seems to have been a far from routine
occurrence. The most common mechanism by which divorce occurred
was 'repudiation' - apopempis or ekpempsis - literally a 'sending away'
or 'sending out' of the bride by her husband. Divorce in this manner
could evidently be undertaken at will by the husband without justifica-
tion (Cantarella 2005a, 246), but apparently the decision to separate
could also be arrived at by common consent (Isaeus C; Plutarch
B). Another form of divorce was that initiated by the woman. This
required the wife to leave the conjugal house in an act known as
apoleipsis or 'abandonment' and for her and her new kyrios (e.g. her
father) to present themselves in front of the archon (one of Athens'
ruling magistrates). Only two examples of apoleipsis are attested in the
classical era (Cohn-Haft 1995, 4), including what is perhaps the most
dramatic of all Athenian divorce sagas, the attempted 'abandonment'
of Alcibiades by his first wife, Hipparete. Rather than allow her to see
the divorce through, Alcibiades apparently provoked a cause celebre by
having her dragged home by force through the marketplace before she
could reach the archon (Andocides B and Plutarch A). There is also
evidence to suggest that a third form of divorce was possible, paternal
aphairesis, that is the 'taking back' of the bride by her father (see Katz
1992, 693-4 and Cohn-Haft 1995, 5-6; but cf. Rosivach 1984, who
questions whether this procedure was ever used). Most scholars think
that this form of divorce was only possible if the woman was still child-
less (e.g. A. R. W. Harrison 1968-71, 309-11, and Cantarella 2005a,

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 19

247). The existence of this procedure raises interesting questions about

the legal rights that the natal family still had over the bride and the
extent to which - prior to motherhood, at least - she was truly inte-
grated into her marital oikos (see also 1.12 below on the laws pertaining
to the epikleros or 'heiress').
The reasons we find cited for divorce are something of a mish-mash
(Cohn-Haft 1995, 9-14). For Alcibiades' wife it was her husband's habit
of bringing hetairai (i.e. prostitutes/mistresses) back to the family home
that sent her over the edge (on hetairai, see Chapter 3.3). In a legal speech
by Isaeus, we find a man called Menecles who is so concerned that he
and his wife are unable to have children that he delicately approaches his
brothers-in-law suggesting that she be found another husband so that
she, at least, might not die childless (Isaeus C; childlessness was perhaps
among the more common reasons for divorce: Blundell 1995, 127). A
slightly less touching story is that of one Protomachus, who, when the
opportunity arises for him to marry an heiress, decides to seek a divorce,
persuading a friend to marry his wife in his place (Demosthenes M).
Regardless of the circumstances under which a divorce occurred, the
husband was bound to return his wife's dowry: this explains Alcibiades'
reluctance to let his wife leave him, for instance (Plutarch A; cf.
Euripides B). In the case of Menecles, he simply passed the dowry he
had received for his wife onto her new husband (Isaeus C).
The question remains as to how Athenians regarded divorce. In
Euripides' Medea we are told that women are held in bad repute if they
divorce their husbands (Euripides J), though perhaps here it is apoleip-
sis in particular which is being alluded to (i.e. the wife's 'abandonment'
of the marital home). While Cox suggests that 'a woman's divorce
could lead to gossip about her behaviour and thereby bring shame on
her' (Cox 1998, 71; cf. Scafuro 1994, 163), there is in fact little evidence
to indicate that divorce initiated by a husband (which could often
be undertaken by mutual consent) was frowned upon. An obvious
exception to this rule is when a man was obliged to seek a divorce,
e.g. if his wife was guilty of adultery (Demosthenes V); or if his wife
had been pledged to him under false pretences, e.g. if his wife proved
to be a non-citizen ([Demosthenes] 59.81-3; cf. Demosthenes T). As
Cox reminds us, however, we hear of relatively few separations in the
legal speeches of the era, the implication being that the divorce rate in
Athens was low. The general view - albeit 'idealized', she suggests - 'is
that husband and wife try to make the marriage work' (Cox 1998, 72;
cf. Coln-Haft 1995, 14, who counts just nine recorded instances of
divorce in classical Athens).

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
20 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

1.8 Widow(er)hood
A far more common ending to a marriage than divorce was the death
of one of the partners. By one estimate, the median life expectancy
(i.e. the age which only 50 per cent of people reached) was 44.5 for
men and 33.6 for women (Angel 1972, 94; cf. Garland 1990, 245), with
disease, warfare and death in childbirth regularly bringing marriages
to an early end. In the case of the death of a wife, there were perhaps
few practical consequences: if she died childless, the dowry would
simply be returned to her natal oikos and the husband would be free
to remarry; if there were children, these would generally remain in
their paternal home (see e.g. Isaeus L), and the woman's son(s) would
inherit her dowry (it is not known what happened to the dowry if a
woman died leaving only female offspring: Sealey 1990, 27; cf. Leduc
1992, 280). If the husband died when the couple were still childless, the
wife would normally return to her original home taking her dowry and
other possessions with her. As stated above, if the dowry could not be
repaid immediately, the debtor (i.e. the husband, if alive; his next of
kin, if not) was liable to pay the wife's family interest of 18 per cent a
year of the capital sum.
There was evidently moreflexibilitywhen a man died leaving a widow
and (non-adult) children. In these circumstances a range of solutions
seems to have been possible to the problem of where the widow and
her offspring lived. We certainly find cases of women remarrying and
leaving their children behind to be reared by the dead husband's family
(e.g. Lysias 32.8). However, alternative scenarios were also possible
whereby the mother would take her children with her to the oikos of a
member of her natal family (usually a brother, who would then act as
her kyrios: e.g. Lysias 3.6 and 19.33), or where a widow who had remar-
ried would live with her children in her new husband's household
(e.g. Isaeus 7.7 and 9.27). In the event of widowhood, women could
generally rely on the protection of their male relatives (and failing that,
the archon, who had special duties in respect of a widow left without
a kyrios, e.g. the responsibility to prosecute offenders on her behalf:
Demosthenes 43.75; [Aristotle], Constitution of Athens 56.7). Minor
children would routinely have guardians appointed to act on their
behalf and administer their dead father's estate until they came of
age.

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 21

1.9 Remarriage
Remarriage was evidently customary for divorcees, widows and wid-
owers alike. Cox suggests that 'remarriage of a widow still in her
childbearing years was often a very hasty transaction' (Cox 1998, 182),
an assessment that chimes with Pomeroy's view, outlined above, that
the relative shortage of suitable women of childbearing age made them
valuable commodities for households requiring an heir (Pomeroy
1975, 64). It is also plausible that an older woman would have a certain
amount of say as to whom she married: Demosthenes' mother failed
to marry the man to whom her dying husband had betrothed her, for
example (Demosthenes E), and in a legal speech of Hyperides we find
an example of a widow who had supposedly promised herself to one
man, Lycophron, but subsequently married another, Charippus (one
of the juicier allegations in this legal speech being that Lycophron had
tried to persuade the woman on her wedding day to save herself for
him and not to sleep with her new husband: Hyperides 1.3 and 1.7).
It is interesting, too, to consider the effects that the intermarriage of
kin, death and remarriage could have on the make-up of a household.
To take one example, in a legal speech by Lysias we find a certain
Diogeiton living in the same house as his fraternal nephews - who
are also, we note, his grandsons - along with his second wife and the
couple's children (Lysias 32). Remarriage could evidently lead to tense
domestic situations on occasions, too, as can be judged from legal dis-
putes between stepchildren (e.g. Demosthenes 39 and 40), or between
children of a previous marriage and a new wife (Antiphon 1 contains
a particularly compelling portrait of an allegedly wicked stepmother).
Of a wholly different order are the domestic arrangements of Callias,
which we learn about in a speech by Andocides. In the late fifth century
he is alleged to have made his wife's mother his mistress while all
three were living under the same roof. The wife supposedly attempted
suicide out of shame before fleeing, and later Callias threw her mother
out of the house, too - but not, it seems, before making the latter
pregnant (Andocides A; see also 1.13 below on the so-called 'bigamy
concession').

1.10 Married life

The variables affecting the relationship between man and wife in clas-
sical Athens make it impossible to talk of a 'typical' marriage. For a
woman, factors such as social class, whether she had been married

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
22 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

before and whether in her new household she was surrounded by

relatives (in the case of a marriage to a member of her kin) or lived
close to natal family (if, for example, she had married a neighbour),
would no doubt have had a significant impact on her life. The anxieties
of the new bride are arguably captured on the faces of women being
led towards their marital homes on red-figure pottery (e.g. Figs 5 and
6) and in tragedy we similarly find some telling examples of women
articulating the uncertainties and stresses that marriage brings them
(e.g. Euripides B and J and Sophocles E).
Reconstructing the nature of the lives lived by women in classi-
cal Athens has been a popular pursuit in modern scholarship. One
point of consensus is that the picture we sometimes find in our texts
of citizen wives and daughters confined to the home, rarely coming
into contact with men, is essentially an idealisation of how women
might and should behave (e.g. Lysias H). For most women, especially
the non-elite, the realities of everyday life would have been somewhat
different. In his ground-breaking study, Law, Sexuality, and Society,
David Cohen dispels the myth of female 'seclusion' by examining the
wide range of activities in which we regularly find women engaged
in our sources: not only did women of the lower classes often work
outside the home, but females of all social strata participated in public
religious activities, visited neighbours, fetched water, assisted in child-
birth, and so on (D. Cohen 1991, 150-4). Cohen concludes that 'what
statements to the effect that the women never leave the house in fact
mean is that they never leave the house without a purpose, a purpose
that will be regarded as legitimate in the eyes of the watchful commu-
nity' (D. Cohen 1991, 163). In short, a citizen woman's life was typi-
cally centred on, but not wholly restricted to, the house, and largely,
if not exclusively, spent in the company of other women (thus Cohen
prefers to talk of the 'separation' of women from men rather than
their 'seclusion': D. Cohen 1991, 149). While men enjoyed far greater
freedom of movement, their time would chiefly be spent with other
males, too, their contact with women mainly limited to female family
members - as well as prostitutes (see Chapter 3).
For a typical newly wed couple, the gap in age and education between
husband and wife might plausibly have led to the kind of paternalistic
relationship we find described in Xenophon's Oeconomicus. In this
dialogue, Ischomachus seeks advice from no less a figure than Socrates
on how to train his young bride in household management, and while
a partnership is evidently envisaged between husband and wife, the
marriage is hardly seen as a pairing of equals: rather, the man is clearly

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 23

the one in charge (see also Aristotle's much-quoted assessment of

men's intellectual superiority to women: Aristotle I). It is in some
of the smaller details that Xenophon's work is particularly revealing,
however: we learn not only that husband and wife rarely converse with
one another, for example (Xenophon H; but cf. Aristophanes AD),
but also - in common with other married couples in our sources - that
they do not share a bed (Oeconomicus 9.6; cf. Lysias C). Such pen por-
traits have led many scholars to conclude that Athenian marriages were
generally devoid of affection and sexual passion. Pomeroy, for instance,
talks of marriage in Athens as 'characterized by a lack of friendship in
the modern sense of the word' (Pomeroy 1975, 74); Cantarella suggests
that marriage 'can hardly be considered the most appropriate venue
for Eros' (Cantarella 2005a, 247); and Keuls ventures that a man slept
with his wife only 'reluctantly, for the sake of offspring' (Keuls 1985,
215; see also Lewis 2002, 176). To be sure, marriage is regularly por-
trayed in a negative light in our sources (e.g. Aristophon A; Euripides
J), but ancient authors do sing its praises, too. For example, marriage
can also be presented as a mutually beneficial and mutually pleasur-
able union (at least if the right women is secured: Semonides A); as
giving rise between husband and wife to a bond of philia, 'affection'
or 'friendship' (Aristotle F and Xenophon A); and, even when things
go wrong, as something worth patching up for the sake of the children
(Demosthenes G). Interestingly, too, we find real-life accounts of
married couples displaying affection for each other (e.g. Isaeus C)
and caring for each other when unwell (Demosthenes 30.34, 50.61,
59.56). Numerous epitaphs also express the sorrow of the husband at
the death of a wife (albeit in conventional wording, e.g. Inscription A)
and images on Greek vases, specifically white-ground lekythoi which
were created as offerings for the dead, often show poignant scenes of
mourning for women (the white-ground technique involved covering
the clay with a white slip, which thus provided the vase-painter with a
light background on which to paint images). While such evidence may
allow us to discuss how relationships between husband and wife were
presented in art and literature, however, we must be careful to bear in
mind the extent to which our sources are artistic creations and, cru-
cially, composed almost exclusively by men and for a largely male audi-
ence (on the representation of marriage in our sources, see esp. Just
1989, 126-52). As a result we have precious little access to the thoughts
and emotions of women. Equally important to consider is just how dif-
ferent ancient conceptions of 'love' and 'affection' may have been from
our own (Konstan 2000, 122) and the extent to which the expectations

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
24 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

of ancient brides and grooms would have differed from those of their
modern, western counterparts.
There may be evidence of affection, co-operation and mutual regard
in some Athenian marriages, but is there any reason to doubt the valid-
ity of Pomeroy's assertion that 'the sexual experience of the majority of
Athenian citizen women was not satisfying' (Pomeroy 1975, 87)? We
find occasional references to husbands feeling eros, 'desire', for their
future or current wives (e.g. Menander B), but less indication that this
feeling was reciprocated; even in Old Comedy, where younger women
are routinely portrayed as sex mad, there are few references to citizen
women enjoying sex with their husbands (instead it is women's alleged
extra-marital dalliances that take centre stage, e.g. Aristophanes BE
and BG; cf. Plato K and L for a mythical example of a devoted wife).
Similarly, the fact that most citizen couples routinely lived, ate and
slept apart does little to suggest that emotional and sexual intimacy was
a standard feature of married life. What is more, since citizen men had
a variety of more or less socially approved outlets for their emotional
and sexual needs in the form of same-sex relationships (see Chapter
2) and prostitutes (see Chapter 3), there was arguably less reason for
them to seek intimacy at home. Indeed, in Xenophon's Memorabilia,
Socrates explicitly states that sex for pleasure with prostitutes is
something different from marital sex, the purpose of which is instead
reproduction (Xenophon D; Carson 1990, 149, detects a contrast in
Greek thought between reproductive sex which is considered 'work'
and non-reproductive sex which is considered 'play'). Athenian wives
did not enjoy the same sexual freedoms as their husbands, of course,
and if a woman had sex with a man to whom she was not married she
risked severe punishments (see Chapter 4.4). Instructively, too, in a
legal speech by Isaeus, the fact that one Pyrrhus serenaded, argued
and feasted with a woman is presented as evidence that she cannot
have been his wife, but rather a prostitute (Isaeus F). The suggestion
here is that intimacy and a heightened emotional connection between
husband and wife are far from normal.

1.11 Children
The production of children was the primary object of marriage for
classical Athenians (Menander C; cf. Demosthenes X). As can be
gleaned from the account of reproduction provided by Xenophon in
his Memorabilia, for example, the desire to have children was seen as
a fundamental and natural part of the human condition (Xenophon

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 25

D) and, as one modern scholar comments, for women, marriage and

motherhood were considered 'the fulfilment of the female role' (Just
1989, 40). Children played a key role not just in inheritance (see 1.12
below) but also in the continuation of the religious traditions of the
household, since they were the means by which family cults would
be maintained in future generations (Isaeus K). In addition, parents
could expect their children to care for them in old age - indeed, they
were legally bound to do so (Plutarch, Life of Solon 23.1 and 4; Strauss
1993, 65) - which provided further motivation for a couple to repro-
duce (Lacey 1968, 117; Isaeus D).
Life expectancy in Athens was low by modern western standards,
with death in childbirth a particularly common cause of female mor-
tality (Blundell 1998, 49, estimates that up to one in five births may
have resulted in the death of the mother; see also Aristotle J). Infant
mortality was also high: Golden reckons that between 30 per cent and
40 per cent of children failed to survive their first year (Golden 1990,
83), making it likely that most Athenian mothers would have buried
at least one child in their lifetime (Blundell 1995, 141; cf. French 1994,
73, and Ingalls 2002, 246-7, whose figures suggest that only 50 per
cent of newborn babies would have reached adulthood). The question
as to whether the exposure of healthy newborn infants was practised
by married couples in classical Athens has been the subject of intense
debate, but there is little doubt among scholars that this is a fate that
regularly befell illegitimate, unhealthy or handicapped children (e.g.
Blundell 1995, 130, who notes, however, that no real-life instances of
exposure are recorded; see also Patterson 1985 and Oldenziel 1987 on
scholarly debates about infanticide). Certainly boys were more prized
than girls - but while in Old Comedy we find listed among the scan-
dalous misdemeanours of women the introduction of a suppositious
male child into a household (presumably as a substitute for a stillborn
or female baby), we have no way of knowing the extent to which such
ruses were ever employed in real life (Aristophanes BE). Interestingly,
the children of those families mentioned in legal speeches do not
show any strong gender bias (Lacey 1968, 166; Ingalls 2002, 249),
which perhaps suggests that the exposure and substitution of female
children were in fact rare. Legal speeches, too, provide us with useful
data about the number of surviving children typically found in an
Athenian family: anything up to five seems normal (Lacey 1968, 163;
see e.g. Demosthenes H and Isaeus B), with stepchildren often living
alongside children from the new marriage (e.g. Isaeus L). Childlessness
is seen as highly problematic, but while medical remedies for infertility

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
26 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

were characteristically aimed at women (Blundell 1998, 44), it was

evidently not always the wife who was thought to be at fault (Isaeus C
and Plutarch D; cf. Byl 1990, 309).

1.12 Inheritance, adoption and the law of the 'heiress' (epikleros)

A situation which every citizen householder in Athens would have
been eager to avoid is the demise of his oikos. The ideal way to ensure
its continuation was to have sons who in turn married and produced
sons, thus providing a clear line of succession. This ambition was
not always realized, of course: Patterson, for example, estimates that
around 20 per cent of kyrioi would have died childless, with a similar
number having only daughters (Patterson 1998, 93). The standard
way in which a kyrios would have made up for the absence of a male
heir was by the adoption of an adult male into his household (Isaeus
D and K). Adoption could take place either while the kyrios was still
alive or by will after his death; but either way, the adoptee was obliged
to marry the kyrios' daughter if there was one. The adoptee - who was
most often a close kinsman of the kyrios (e.g. his brother or nephew:
Humpreys 2002, 342; but cf. Rubenstein 1993, 22-6) - would forfeit
any inheritance rights he had in his natal family, his key task in the
adoptive household being to sire a male heir through which the family
estate might be transmitted in the future. Once he had provided this
heir he was, it seems, at liberty to return to his natal oikos if he so chose,
although this entailed giving up his rights in his adoptive family. These
complex rules were evidently aimed at preventing two oikoi merging
into one, designed as they were to ensure that the same man did not
inherit twice. (A further stipulation was that the adoptee did not prop-
erly 'inherit' the kyrios' estate; like a dowry, the estate remained under
his administration to use as his own, but had to be passed on to his
offspring intact: Isaeus 8.31; Sissa 1996, 220-1.)
When a kyrios died, Athenian law dictated that his son - whether
natural or adopted - came into possession of his estate; if the deceased
had more than one son, the estate was divided equally between them
(which in turn could lead to the creation of new oikoi: Demosthenes
H). In the absence of a living son (or his descendants), the next in line
was the dead man's daughter(s) (or her descendants), and then the
deceased's brother (or his descendants), his sister (or her descendants),
then paternal uncle(s), paternal aunt(s) and so on, with the members
of an individual's extended family able to inherit - the so-called
anchisteia - limited by law to the children of the deceased's first cousins

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 27

(Isaeus 11.2; see also Just 1989, 85-8). Importantly, then, Athenian law
allowed for the estate to be settled on a female, most often the daughter
(or daughters) of the deceased. A woman who found herself in this
position was known as an epikleros, usually translated as 'heiress' (the
word literally means 'on the estate' or 'with the property'). As a female,
however, she was unable to administer the inheritance herself. For
this, she needed a kyrios in the form of a husband - and to protect
the bloodline of inheritance, this man should ideally be a close male
relative.
Once a woman became an epikleros, she automatically became the
subject of a judicial procedure called an epidikasia, the precise purpose
of which has been the subject of debate. Most scholars think the
epidikasia served to determine the member of her family to whom the
heiress would henceforth be married, bypassing the usual convention
of the 'betrothal' (engye). However, it has been suggested that this pro-
cedure merely established which man was to become her kyrios - with
this man then gaining the right either to wed her himself or to give her
away in marriage to another member of family (Cudjoe 2005). Either
way, the job of the archon, who oversaw this procedure, was clearly to
make an official adjudication about the epikleros' future and, if more
than one relative sought to claim her, to decide which one should
prevail (with preference given to the man most closely related to her:
see Katz 1992, 695).
In line with the standard order of inheritance in Athens, the deceased
man's brother or nephew was the obvious candidate to claim the hand
of the epikleros, but it was evidently not obligatory for him to do so
(Isaeus I). If no family member came forward to claim the epikleros (a
real possibility if she was a poor man's daughter), the extended family
had a social and legal duty to provide her with a dowry and to find her
a husband (Isaeus A; Demosthenes 43.54). Here, then, we find another
example of Athenian laws which are designed to avert the extinction of
an oikos. Once married, the epikleros' husband enjoyed a status similar
to that of an adoptive son: he forfeited his inheritance rights in his
natal family and, while the estate was his to administer, it remained
the property of his wife, the heiress (Isaeus 10.12; who might as a result
turn into something of a demanding wife: Menander J). The key task
of the husband, then, just like the adoptive son, was to sire a male heir
to inherit the oikos.
Complications arose when either the epikleros or her prospective
husband were married at the time when the kyrios died. In the case
of a married woman, the legal process of the epidikasia, which saw

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
28 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

her allotment to a member of her natal family, evidently entailed her

divorce from her existing husband (Isaeus H). The law may have
provided some flexibility, however: in a legal speech by Isaeus we find
an example of a woman who remained with her existing husband after
becoming an heiress (Isaeus N), though in this case it is clearly her
natal family rather than she and her husband who took possession of
the estate. Some scholars believe that the woman was not obliged to
divorce her husband if she had children (Maffi 2005, 257); others if
she had a son (for discussion, see A. R. W. Harrison 1968-71, 309-11).
And if she already had sons there was always another possibility:
namely for one of these to be adopted into her natal family (Cox 1998,
95, who also notes examples of grandsons inheriting without being
adopted; see also Isaeus P). In his Life of Solon, Plutarch also details
some of the finer points of the law concerning the epikleros that Solon
supposedly framed in the sixth century BC (Plutarch D). These include
the requirement of the new husband to sleep with his wife at least three
times a month - a rule presumably aimed at encouraging the produc-
tion of an heir and deterring a relative (especially one in extreme old
age) from claiming the woman's hand purely for financial gain. Solon's
law as cited by Plutarch also suggests that the heiress could remarry
within the family group in the event that husband was unable to
provide her with offspring (or perhaps even, tantalisingly, that she was
allowed to have extra-marital sex with kin members for the purpose of
securing an heir, depending on how the Greek word syneinai is to be
understood: Plutarch D).
In the case of men who were already married when they claimed
an heiress, we find evidence that that they, too, divorced their exist-
ing wives. In Demosthenes M, for example, Protomachus, is said to
have done just this, arranging for his wife's remarriage to a friend of
his when he became eligible to claim the hand of an heiress. However,
the wording of this passage might well suggest that the divorce did not
happen straight away and that he was still married to his original wife
at the point when he was allotted the epikleros. (This is only problem-
atic, of course, if the epidikasia is thought to result in the marriage of
the epikleros and the kin member; not if the epidikasia merely gives the
kin member the status of kyrios and the right to marry the woman in
the future.) On this and other evidence, Lacey goes as far as suggest-
ing that a man might sometimes have taken a wife awarded to him as
epikleros in addition to his existing wife (Lacey 1968, 143-4). Nor is
this the only circumstance in which it has been suggested that a man in
classical Athens could legally be husband to more than one wife.

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 29

1.13 Athens in crisis: the 'bigamy concession'

The shortage of men towards the end of the Peloponnesian War -
especially acute following the Sicilian disaster of 413 BC - called for
some desperate measures on the part of the Athenians. Strikingly, citi-
zenship was extended not just to those metics and foreigners but also
the slaves who had fought on behalf of the city at the Battle of Arginusae
in 406 BC, thus allowing them to intermarry with Athenians and
produce citizen offspring (citizenship had previously been extended
to other select groups of foreigners, too). Diognenes Laertius, writing
in the third century AD, also informs us that, at a stage in the late fifth
century usually guessed to be some point after 413 BC, Athenian men
were allowed to 'marry one citizen woman but also have children by
another' (Diogenes Laertius A; cf. Aulus Gellius 15.20). The precise
meaning of this passage has been much discussed by scholars, one key
point of disagreement being whether the second woman with whom
a man was permitted to sire citizen offspring was regarded as a legiti-
mate 'wife' (for discussion, see Ogden 1996, 72-5). The existence of a
'bigamy concession' would certainly help to make sense of later tradi-
tions that figures such as Socrates had two wives, however (Pomeroy
1975, 66-7), and may even be the reality behind the tangled domestic
situation in which Callias found himself at the end of the fifth century
(Andocides A: see 1.9 above). If this 'bigamy concession' did exist, it
was doubtless abandoned in 403 BC, shortly after the war ended, when
the city passed legislation reinstating the requirement for would-be
citizens to demonstrate that both their parents were Athenian. This
403 BC legislation also required those who were already citizens 'to be
let be without examination' (scholiast on Aeschines 1.39), thus forbid-
ding the mixed bag of people who could now legitimately lay claim to
Athenian citizenship from being questioned about their parentage and
origins.

1.14 Non-marriage
Clearly not everyone in Athens got married. In the case of citizen
women, for whom 'marriage and motherhood were considered the
primary goals' in life (Pomeroy 1975, 62), spinsterhood must have
been a particularly cruel fate (see Aristophanes AW; cf. Lysias 12.21).
Such was the emphasis on marriage for females that, in the event of a
girl dying unwed, she was often envisaged as a bride of death, and her
grave marked by a loutrophoros, the vessel in which the water for the

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
30 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

bridal bath was traditionally carried (Oakley and Sinos 1993, 6). In
tragedy, too, it is her failure to marry and have children that the virgin
Antigone bewails before she dies, for example (Sophocles A and B; see
also Seaford 1987, esp. 106-7, and Rehm 1994 on female death before
marriage). Some citizen men evidently could not afford to marry or
preferred not to (in a speech by Demosthenes, for example, we find one
Archiades who chose to live alone: Demosthenes I) - not that failure
to marry would necessarily spell the end of an oikos, since it was still
open for unmarried men to adopt an heir. For Plato, at least, remaining
unmarried amounted to a dereliction of one's civic duty. In the Laws,
he proposes that any man who reached the age of thirty-five unwed
should be fined (Laws 774a-c).

1.15 Alternatives to marriage: the Athenian pallake (concubine)

As we have seen, various resolutions passed in the classical era served
either to discourage or expressly to forbid marriage between a citizen
and non-citizen in Athens. However, there was nothing to prevent a
citizen man from having a long-term relationship with a non-citizen
woman or even setting up home with her - as long as he did not try
to pass her off as his 'wife' (Demosthenes N). A woman who found
herself in this position was known as a pallake or 'concubine'.
Significant differences between 'marriage' (synoikein) and mere
'co-habitation'(syneinai) included the fact that concubinage occurred
without an engye and that a pallake would routinely come with no
dowry. The arrangement was therefore far more casual than marriage
and could presumably be terminated by either party at will (a pallake
is summarily dismissed by her citizen boyfriend in Menander M, for
example). Typically, a concubine might be a former prostitute with
whom a man chose to settle down in widowerhood (see Chapter 3.6) or
a woman set up in accommodation separate from the family home by
a wealthy, married man as his mistress. The orator Lysias kept a young
prostitute at the house of a friend, for instance ([Demosthenes] 59.22),
whereas in Isaeus 6 we learn that Euctemon installed his lover, Alce,
in the Kerameikos before eventually abandoning his wife and children
to move in with her (Isaeus J). The extent to which married Athenian
men like Lysias and Euctemon kept pallakai as mistresses in addition
to their wives is essentially impossible to know, but as Blundell asserts,
'[a]mong the upper classes, the practice of keeping a concubine appears
to have been relatively common' (Blundell 1995, 124). Certainly it was
not the done thing for a man to lodge his pallake under the same roof

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 31

as his citizen wife: indeed, even bringing mistresses and prostitutes

home could be grounds for divorce, as we saw earlier (Andocides B).
Nor is it likely that a wife and mistress would have placidly accepted
each other's existence. As Humphreys notes, the fact that a number of
fifth-century tragedies depict a wife locked in conflict with a concubine
(e.g. Sophocles' Trachiniae and Euripides' Andromache) suggests that
this theme had contemporary resonance in Athens (Humphreys 1983,
63).
Pallakai were, then, a luxury that a man generally indulged in either
after or at the same time as a citizen marriage - an added extra rather
than an alternative to a conventional union and the production of
legitimate offspring. If a citizen man did have children with a foreign
or metic pallake rather than a legitimate wife, these were regarded as
nothoi or 'bastards' in the eyes of the law (on citizen-metic unions,
see sp. Bakewell 2008/9). As nothoi (sing. nothos) these children
would have enjoyed few of the rights and responsibilities of citizen
children: despite having a citizen father, their status in the city would
essentially have been that of metics and they were also released from
the obligation of supporting their father in old age and carrying on the
ancestral rites of their paternal family. Crucially, too, in the classical era
nothoi were entitled to inherit a maximum of 500 or 1,000 drachmas,
the so-called notheia or 'bastard's share' (our sources differ as to the
amount: see Ogden 1996, 38-9). This important difference between
the inheritance rights of a citizen man's offspring by a legitimate wife
and his offspring by a concubine accounts for the number of allega-
tions we find in legal speeches that children by concubines have been
passed off as citizens (e.g. Dinarchus 1.71; Isaeus 6.21). The pallake is
also capable of being cast as a hate figure by the man's marital family:
in Isaeus 6, for example, Euctemon's mistress, Alce, is portrayed as a
woman of few scruples who schemes to get her eldest son passed off
as an Athenian citizen (Isaeus J). In fifth-century comedy, too, a key
element of the mockery to which Pericles' foreign lover, Aspasia, was
subjected seems to have hinged on her being openly referred to as a
concubine (Plutarch B): in Aspasia's case at least, pallake was evidently
used as a term of abuse.
An interesting question to consider is the extent to which citizen
women might have become pallakai in classical Athens. Clearly the
category of pallake existed in the city long before Pericles' citizenship
law differentiated between citizen and non-citizen women, since 'con-
cubines' are mentioned in Solon's early sixth-century law on justifiable
homicide (Demosthenes D; cf. Lysias G), and there is every reason to

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
32 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

suppose that, in this earlier stage of Athens' history, some 'Athenian'

girls did become concubines. But whether the tradition of 'citizen' pal-
lakai continued to any great degree into the late fifth and fourth cen-
turies is impossible to estimate from our scanty evidence (see Ogden
1996, 158-63). Possibly concubinage was an option for citizen girls
from poorer families whose meagre dowries would have made them an
unattractive match, or for widows, divorcees or women whose families
had, for whatever reason, failed to marry them off young. As various
scholars have pointed out, however, the difference in status enjoyed
by a wife and a pallake was marked and so presumably this was a fate
which most families would sooner avoid for their womenfolk (see e.g.
Patterson 1991, 284, and 2005, 58). The lack of a dowry meant that the
concubine had no protection from being discarded, for example (Wiles
1989, 44), and her children enjoyed relatively low social status and only
a meagre claim on their father's estate. Evidence from legal speeches
also confirms that the legal status of pallakai was lower than that of
wives (e.g. Lysias G; cf. Demosthenes X).
Such evidence that there is for citizen pallakai is often confusing
and disputed. In a legal speech by Isaeus, we even find a puzzling
reference to concubines receiving what are arguably dowries - but, as
has been pointed out, it is probably unwise simply to assume that the
speaker is talking about contemporary Athenian practice here (Isaeus
G; Ogden 1996, 159). There is also the vexed question as to whether,
following Pericles' law, the offspring of two citizens linked not by
marriage but by concubinage were considered 'legitimate' (gnesioi)
or 'bastards' (nothoi) - or in other words, could a citizen pallake bear
citizen children? Given the importance so often given in legal speeches
to establishing that a woman was a gyne engyete (i.e. 'wife pledged in
an engye), the answer is most probably 'no', though scholarly opinions
differ (for discussion and an overview of scholarly debate, see Ogden
1996, 151-65).

1.16 Non-citizens: metics and slaves

Metics formed a large and varied class in classical Athens, perhaps
accounting for a third or more of the free residents of the city. We
are relatively well informed about the scandalous details of the love
lives of certain metic women, namely those who were romantically
involved with high-profile citizens, or who were named as mistresses
in legal speeches, or who worked as high-class prostitutes (see Chapter
3.7), but our sources tell us little about the relationships which metics

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 33

formed between themselves. As has been noted, 'metics must have had
a marital and legitimacy system of some kind' (Ogden 1996, 133), since
we find not only examples of married metic couples in our sources,
but also tantalising references to legal cases involving metic heiresses
and questions of inheritance ([Aristotle], Constitution of Athens 58.3).
It seems plausible, then, that the processes of betrothal and wedding
ceremonies - and, indeed, divorce and inheritance - were experienced
in a similar way by metics and by citizens in Athens, the key difference
being the lack of citizen privileges to which these resident aliens and
their offspring could lay claim.
Whilst slaves had no mechanism by which they could enter into
a legal marriage, some do seem to have been allowed to form lasting
unions with each other (and if the evidence of Roman Comedy is to
be trusted, then domestic Athenian slaves may occasionally have per-
formed unofficial 'wedding' ceremonies: see MacCary and Willcock
1976, 107-8, on Plautus, Casina 68 and 71-2). Since a proportion of
Athenian slaves were home bred, sexual relations cannot have been
uncommon among slaves, though these are likely to have taken place
primarily at their master's discretion. In Xenophon's Oeconomicus,
Ischomachus explains how he keeps the door between the men's and
women's quarters bolted and allows only what he considers to be the
'good' slaves to breed (Xenophon J).
Not every slave's sex life would have involved a long-term relation-
ship with a kindred spirit. Vast numbers of slaves would have worked
in Athens' brothels, for example (and similarly many metics - both
male and female - would have eked out a living as jobbing street-
walkers in Athens' red-light districts: see Chapter 3.4). In a domestic
setting, too, it seems likely that slaves and their owners occasionally
had sexual liaisons. Old Comedy offers an array of models here, gener-
ally presented from the man's point of view as stolen pleasures, ranging
from kissing a slave-girl while the wife is in the bath (Peace 1138-9)
to the full-blown rape of a neighbour's slave-girl who has been caught
stealing (Aristophanes AA; cf. Aristophanes BG, where sex with
slaves is listed as a supposed female misdemeanour). Other sources
hint at sex between masters and slaves, too. The banter in which
Euphiletus and his wife engage in Lysias 1 is suggestive of the contexts
in which a master might make advances on a slave (Lysias D), whereas
in Oeconomicus we find Ischomachus talking openly about the choice
to be made between his wife and a female slave, his preference being for
consensual sex with his wife (Xenophon L). Scholarly opinion differs
as to the extent to which citizen men would have attempted sexual

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
34 Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens

activity with their female (or indeed male) slaves, although Blundell is
probably right when she says that such liaisons 'were not accepted as a
matter of course' (Blundell 1995, 146; see E. Cohen 2000a, 122-3, for
discussion). Any offspring that a slave bore a citizen would presumably
be exposed or raised as a slave.

1.17 Conclusion
By exploring the nature of marriage and other long-term relationships
in this chapter, we have seen how social structures, cultural expecta-
tions and legal statutes served to shape the domestic arrangements
- and thus the sex lives - of classical Athenians. Clear themes emerge
here, such as the Athenian obsession with legitimacy and inheritance,
the close connection that women maintained with their natal family
even after marriage, and the relative lack of control that women in
particular had over their choice of marriage partner. What is also clear
is the importance of citizen marriage not just to the oikos, but to the
polis or 'city-state' as a whole. After all, the production of legitimate
offspring by a married couple was the chief mechanism by which the
household and its traditions were continued and by which Athens was
able to replenish its stock of citizens.
While marriage seems to have been a topic of continued interest
for Athenians during the classical era, it is also instructive to trace the
way in which ideology surrounding this institution shifted over time.
What Blundell describes as a 'growing cultural emphasis on marriage
during the fifth century' (Blundell and Rabinowitz 2008, 137) is par-
ticularly evident in the war-ravaged years of the late fifth century, for
example, when the subtly changing role played by women in the city
is an issue we find explored in numerous contemporary sources (e.g.
Thucydides 2.44 and 46; Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Women at the
Thesmophoria). As Blundell notes, the interest in marriage during this
period is particularly evident in vase-painting, where there is a marked
trend for artists to depict women in domestic settings being adorned
for weddings (Blundell and Rabinowitz 2008, 137). In this period
of uncertainty, then, we arguably have evidence of a contemporary
response to the perceived crisis in Athens: namely, to promote mar-
riage and domesticity as an ideal for women. In a city where citizen
numbers are dwindling due to a prolonged war, marriage is also an
appropriate focus for male erotic energies, of course, since this is the
one socially sanctioned context in which reproductive sex could take
place.

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Sexual Unions: Marriage and Domestic Life 35

Another detail to emerge from the discussion in this chapter is the

difference in the sexual freedoms typically enjoyed by men and women
in Athens. Respectable women were expected to be virgins when
they married and extra-marital sex was punished severely by law (see
Chapter 4.4). For citizen men, things looked very different, since they
lived in a world where it was socially acceptable to keep a mistress,
where prostitutes were plentiful and where same-sex relationships
between males were a common - if not universally praised - feature
of life. Importantly, the existence of an array of sexual choices for men
meant that marital sex could be contrasted with other forms of sexual
activity. And, as we have seen, when such comparisons are made in our
sources, wives are routinely associated with the oikos and legitimate
offspring, whereas sexual pleasure is seen as deriving from elsewhere
(e.g. Demosthenes X).
The next two chapters explore two of these alternative sexual outlets:
same-sex relationships and prostitution.

This content downloaded from

157.181.151.144 on Thu, 21 May 2020 18:33:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms