Greek monogamy legally concealed a functional polygamy that treated wives as property
Evidence
“We have hetarias for spiritual pleasures,” says Demosthenes, “concubines (pallakes) for sensual pleasure, and wives to give us sons.” The pallakis replaced the wife in the master’s bed if she was ill, indisposed, pregnant, or recovering from childbirth; so there was no great difference between a gynaeceum and a harem. In Athens, the wife is shut up in her quarters, held by law under severe constraint, and watched over by special magistrates. She spends her whole life as a minor; she is under the control of her guardian: either her father, or her husband, or her husband’s heir or, by default, the state, represented by public officials; here are her masters, and they use her like merchandise, the guardian’s control extending over both her person and her property; the guardian can transmit her rights as he wishes: the father gives his daughter up for adoption or in marriage; the husband can repudiate his wife and hand her over to another husband. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 188
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the Lex Oppia sumptuary law passage in ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ — both show Athenian legal restriction of women as class/property signaling. — connects to: The institution of inheritance causally produced woman’s subordination to man’s property — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 182; Biblical-era women were property bound to male kin and taboo-burdened; The epiklerate reduced female heirs to procreative tools preserving patrilineal property — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 189 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- The epiklerate reduced female heirs to procreative tools preserving patrilineal property
#exemplifies(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 189 - Biblical-era women were property bound to male kin and taboo-burdened
#exemplifies(0.78) - The institution of inheritance causally produced woman’s subordination to man’s property
#expands(0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 182