Title Of Paper 2nd Class Citizens free essay sample

Title Of Paper: 2nd Class Citizens In Greek Society Essay, Research Paper Grade Received on Report: 94 Throughout human history the functions of adult females and work forces have been defined in portion by physiology and in portion by the attitudes conveyed by those who hold power and influence. In ancient history, societies were centered around adult females and the worshipping of goddesses. These functions changed rapidly as hunting and warfare became progressively more of import and adult females # 8217 ; s less powerful build placed them in a weaker place. Just prior to the Hellenistic Age, three work forces wrote of their times, and of their perceptual experiences, attitudes and thoughts sing work forces, adult females, and civilisation. In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles we get a glance inside the life and tragic bad lucks of a royal household. Thucydides wrote a history of the Peloponnesian war, and in his relation of Pericles # 8217 ; Funeral Oration the responsibilities and benefits of Athenians were revealed. Plato # 8217 ; s The Republic, was a philosophical duologue covering the times as they were and how he felt they perchance could be better. In each of these plants t! he roles of adult females are revealed non merely through their place within the community but besides through the relation of the benefits and rights work forces enjoyed which adult females were denied. During the clip of Sophocles, the Grecian population led a simplistic life basking a dynamic life of festivals, light work tonss and the attending of mandatory play paid for by the province for homo sweetening. The Grecian population consisted of free work forces, free adult females and slaves. Work force were at the top of the hierarchy basking all the benefits provided by their civilisation ; engagement in political relations, ownership of belongings, influence, and the freedom to take their actions. Womans on the other manus were chiefly delegated to maintaining up and fostering the visual aspects of society ; attention of the place and kids, care of ownerships, and more significantly upkeep of their hubbies reputes and award. Throughout Sophocles # 8217 ; Oedipus Rex the values that make a good citizen ( that being a free male ) are introduced. These include being low before the Gods, being responsible for your actions while holding regard for worlds and for the instructions of the Gods. The outlooks and functions of adult females are besides shown through the actions of Jocasta the queen in comparing with the actions of her hubby Oedipus. Jocasta is non entitled to as much public power as her hubby, her function is in the background, assisting direct him in private and ever caring to maintain up his repute. She says during one of Oedipus # 8217 ; s public effusions, # 8220 ; Into the castle now. And Creon, you go place. Why make such a fad over nil? # 8221 ; 1, while at another clip she deferentially says, # 8220 ; # 8230 ; But do allow # 8217 ; s travel indoors. I # 8217 ; d neer displease you, least of all in this. # 8221 ; 2 This weak and dependent perceptual experience of adult females is evidenced even more when hearing Oedipus talk of his kids to Creon, # 8220 ; # 8230 ; my girls, my hapless incapacitated misss, constellating at our tabular array, neer without me vibrating over them # 8230 ; take attention of them, I beg you. # 8221 ; 3 He continues stating to his kids ; # 8220 ; How I weep for you # 8230 ; merely thought of all your yearss to come, the resentment, the life that rough world will thrust upon you. Where are the public assemblages you can fall in, the feasts of the kins? # 8230 ; And when you reach flawlessness, ripe for matrimony, who will he be, my beloved 1s? # 8230 ; Who will get married you so? Not a adult male on Earth. Your day of reckoning is clear: you # 8217 ; ll shrivel off to nil, individual, without a child. # 8221 ; 4 When Jocasta and Oedipus eventually hear that their destiny has so come to go through, the actions of each are really different, but besides really declarative of their perspective functions. Oedipus takes a powerful stance by bring downing a life-long penalty on himself. Jocasta takes the meeker path, by hanging herself she saves herself from the dishonour of holding to populate with the cognition of her fatal actions, and from the awfully unsmooth life she would hold being stigmatized and being forced to populate without a proper hubby and supplier. By the clip of the Peloponnesian War, the position of adult females had non changed much. Although adult females were allowed to have some sum of belongings, the day-to-day direction of that belongings was the duty of her hubby. A adult females # 8217 ; s function was still in the place, her chief responsibility being to hold and raise kids. The work forces of Athinais were expected to be active in political life, to function the province, and to keep the illustriousness of Athinais by themselves being great citizens. During Pericles # 8217 ; Funeral Oration for the dead soldiers, the adult females were acknowledged in a brief statement that clearly showed the attitudes of the twenty-four hours ; # 8220 ; # 8230 ; you who are still of an age to engender kids must bear up in the hope of holding others in their position ; non merely will they assist you to bury those whom you have lost, but will be to the province at one time support and a security. # 8221 ; 5 In add-on to the force per unit area to hold more kids, adult females in Athens were expected to grieve and live unnoticed by the community. # 8220 ; Gr! eat will be your glorification in non falling short of your natural character ; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the work forces whether for good or for bad # 8221 ; 6 Plato did speak about adult females in his work The Republic, in which he and his associates discussed the significance of justness and what a absolutely merely province would imply. Through the duologue between Socrates and Glaucon we get a glance of the future functions of adult females during their treatment of the defenders of the province. In a flash of insight, Socrates efforts to construct an statement to turn out that adult females can be good to the province in a function that is rather different than their current batch. # 8220 ; # 8230 ; there is no chase of the decision makers of a province that belongs to a adult female because she is a adult female or to a adult male because he is a adult male. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both animals, and adult females of course portion in all chases and work forces in all # 8230 ; # 8221 ; 7 Socrates besides seems to believe that even if their thoughts for the province do non come to go through, adult females are, by natural jurisprudence, equal to work forces and the manner that they are treated in his clip is unnatural. The function of adult females is still terr! ibly unequal to work forces, and the mere thought of them going peers is so extremist that Socrates is about afraid to talk his thoughts. # 8220 ; the contrast with present usage would do much in our proposals look pathetic # 8230 ; ( but ) # 8230 ; we must non fear the shots with which the marbless would recognize so great a revolution # 8221 ; 8 Although Plato seems in this statement to believe that adult females deserve equality, the attitudes of his clip besides have their influence within his duologue. # 8220 ; And on immature work forces, certainly, who excel in war and other chases we must bestow awards and awards, and in peculiar, the chance of more frequent intercourse with the adult females # 8221 ; .9 By stating this, Socrates wantonnesss all signifier of equality and reverts a adult female # 8217 ; s function back to that of a ownership of adult male for his pleasance and as a breeder for the province. By reading the plants of Plato, Thucydides, and Sophocles, an penetration into the lives and functions of adult females in pre-Hellenistic Greece can be obtained. Womans were the unobserved and unacknowledged yarn that helped to keep the province together. They bore and raised its kids, protected the award of its politically active work forces, and influenced its powerful work forces in private. Although these adult females were physically weaker than the work forces, they served their province as allowed and expected in malice of the fact that they were neer granted the benefits and rights which it granted to their hubbies. End Notes 1 Sophocles, Oedipus the King, in The Three Theban Plays, transcriber Robert Fagles ( New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. , 1984 ) , 196. 2 Sophocles, 208. 3 Sophocles, 247. 4 Sophocles, 248. 5Thucydides, Pericles # 8217 ; Funeral Oration, in Princeton Readings in Political Thought, eds. Mitchell Cohen and Nicole Fermon ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996 ) , 17. 6 Thucydides, 18. 7 Plato, The Republic, in Princeton Readings in Political Thought, eds. Mitchell Cohen and Nicole Fermon ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996 ) , 88. 8 Plato, 85. 9 Plato, 92. 36e