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A Woman's Life - Coggle Diagram
A Woman's Life
Being a Wife
One of the most important jobs of a wife was spinning and weaving cloth for clothing and sheets, as cloth was very expensive to buy
the process of preparing wool, spinning it, dying it and then weaving it was time-consuming but very important
women had no power outside of the household but it seems that Pericles' change in the citizenship laws elevated the status of women to some degree
a citizen women was given the status of a minor in Athenian law and any property she acquired was given to her husband to manage
when leaving the house, respectable women were expected to be escorted by a male relative but this was less practical for poorer women who needed to leave the house to work, perhaps as stool-holders
the main reason that women were discouraged from appearing in public was to prevent unwanted attention from other men. It was not looked down upon for men to have mistresses, as long as it wasn't the wife of another citizen
divorce was easy for a man in athens, he would just send her back to her family, along with the dowry
Marriage
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the arrangement was made between her father and the male head of the groom's family (which was often the groom himself, since a girl was normally given to a man twice her age)
a marriage was a financial and social agreement between the men of two families - romance was not important
A dowry was a substantial financial contribution made to the marriage by the bride's father, as daughters didn't inherit from their fathers so this was effectively her inheritance
The dowry was usually set between 5 and 20 percent of the father's wealth and if a man wanted a divorce he had to pay back the dowry in full
Childhood
the most important responsibility for a father of a daughter was to ensure her marriage to a suitable husband, and to provide a large dowry
a girl did not go to school, but stayed at home and earnt from her mother the roles and duties of an Athenian woman: spinning, weaving, cooking and managing the finances
some girls performed important rituals at the Panathenaia, most notably the Arrephoroi wh helped to weave the peplos and present it to Athena Polias
These girls were between the ages of 7-11 and lived for a year on the Acropolis, in a building called the Arrephorion, under the supervision of the priestess of Athena Polias