6.2 The Means Of Accomplishing part 2

There isn’t “a history”, especially one of women’s personal autonomy. Instead, there are histories of whatever autonomy concerned the writer. Looking outside the expectations found in “Western” culture, women have enjoyed independence, leadership authority, and autonomy. Spartan woman and Athenian citizen’s wife lived incompatible lives. The aristocratic eighteenth century Boston wife lived in a different world than her maid, her slave, an indigenous woman, a farmer’s wife. That broader history shows that America has imposed limitations on women’s autonomy for some male purpose, not revealed some universal biological truth.

During WW II American and European women mastered “male” jobs and responsibilities. Even there, men’s assumptions and prejudices shaped the rules limiting women’s abilities and restricting their roles. In practical terms defining  women’s “proper” role grew from presumptions of male superiority that begged for support. Said directly, if women could not fill those roles there would not have to be rules forbidding them from doing them. Every restriction on women’s behavior is a DEI policy.

Individual Autonomy – A Promise Of Self-Betterment

Mudsill Theory is slavery with fresh paint. Without Europe’s ancient bloodlines, the American aristocratic right to rule came from the mythos of personal success. Success showed God’s approval and failure proved personal inadequacy (Calvinism). The American weltanschauung expressed that tight to rule as having to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.¹ That platitude justified ignoring the issues such as social class, nationality, race, and gender that distort the opportunity for success. Because men and women share those traits, focusing on the treatment of women gives the clearest look at the Enlightenment and conservative beliefs governing individual autonomy._²

The American mythos of women’s autonomy begins with inadequate, distorted images of women beginning with early Judaism. It draws selectively from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire, concluding with a crafted narrative of English and American law. Throughout history the legislators and moralists justify their mythos by presenting ideal visions of public life. That isn’t where people live. Understanding individual autonomy requires separating limitations men imposed on women from women’s actual capacities and accomplishments.

A Sprint Through Ancient Cultures

Traditional American ideas of women’s proper role rely on ignoring and revising history. The mythos, which begins with Judaism, trails through Greece, Rome, and England. The history of women’s autonomy far more varied. Ancient Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt surrounded the Hebrews historically and geographically. Aside from a right to vote (1920), women’s rights in those cultures exceeded American women’s rights in the 1950s. Although still patriarchal societies those cultures recognized women’s legal autonomy, right to own property/business, sign contracts, inheritance, to testify/witness, to file for divorce, have abortions, and engage in public life. Formal education was limited and directed toward men, but women could gain educations.

Judaism, the heritage the U.S. adopted, restricted women’s rights. It denied women’s legal autonomy, their right to witness or testify. Inheritance went to widows’ sons. If there was no son, the dead husband’s brother had father her son. Women could not divorce directly. Although they could own property, they had a limited right to sign contracts and their public life was restricted. Halacha Law gave primacy to the woman’s life, preserving her right to abortion.³

Ancient Athens and Sparta held incompatible visions of women’s autonomy. Athens, the foundation of Western democracy, stripped women of individual rights. Girls thirteen to eighteen were forced into arranged marriage, typically with men twice their age. Athenians confined women to the home, stripped them of public life. Simply mentioning a wife’s name in public disgraced her. Women had no legal autonomy and could not testify/witness, sign contracts, or own businesses. Widows were forced to marry the dead husband’s closest eligible male relative to keep the assets in the family. Wives were denied educations. A woman could demand a divorce, but initiating one stripped them of their dowery and made them social outcasts. The right women retained was to abortions.

Spartan women held legal autonomy. They married at eighteen to twenty to men closer to their own age. They could testify/witness, sign contracts, inherit, and own property. While they could not vote, they publicly debated political issues with leaders. Public life included public fitness training and education. Spartan women could initiate divorce without social recriminations, and have abortions.

Its warrior mentality shaped Spartan life in ways compatible with conservative white replacement theory. Fear of being outbred. The expectation of having lots of sons increased women’s autonomy. Birthing strong sons required pairing with strong women. Husbands were absent: war or living in barracks until age thirty. At seven boys moved to the state sponsored agoge. Women ran the home, governed the Helots (slaves), and controlled the day-to-day community affairs.

The demand for warrior sons expanded women’s autonomy. Some had two husbands. With men dying in battle, more often a husband had multiple wives. A man who failed to impregnate his wife might give her away or have another Spartan impregnate her.

Spartan father or not, slaves’ children were slaves. Spartan women could not pair with slaves or Metics (non-Spartan free persons). Spartan fathered Metic sons could join the  army and possibly gain citizenship. Daughters might be killed.⁴

Sparta was analogous to the WW II U.S. Men were gone. Not every woman could do every man’s job. (Misogynists silently ignore that not every man can do every man’s job.) Even so, women did the jobs, ran the equipment, managed the finances, made daily life function.

Sparta more fully saw women as beings. Athenians viewed daughters and wives as possessions deserving barely more consideration than slaves. Philosophers disagreed, but Athenian and masculine assumption about superiority justified disempowering women.

That aristocratic disempowerment of citizens’ wives and daughters applied to ten percent of the population. Athenian citizens had to compartmentalize their beliefs to defend a biological justification for the treatment of women. Athenian citizens’ social lives reveal how hollow their justifications were, and most people lived in a different world.

Next: dicteriades, auletrides, and hetaira, then Rome.

1 This saying is widely misunderstood. It did not say people were responsible for failing to try hard enough. They phrase states the impossibility lifting yourself out of mud by pulling on your bootstraps. It has been distorted to  justify ignoring people in need.

 2 Dividing the sample population by gender means that both groups will fall into approximately equal subsets of class, nationality, race, etc.

3 Until the head of the fetus emerged, the fetus was the “rodef”: someone actively pursuing a person with the intent to harm or kill them.

 4 Whether children with visible defects were killed after birth is contested. The execution of Spartan-metic daughters is similarly uncertain.