L&R General

Key aspects of male life in Greece:

• Providing for the house (being the oikos)

• Participating in the assembly

• Compulsory military service

• Behave in a moderate matter

Key aspects of female life in Greece:

• Fertility to guarantee a male heir (kyrios)

• Fidelity

• Beauty

Women’s sexuality in Greece:

• Women were weak-minded as a result of their sexuality

• Women kept separate from men

• Women could not be present around guests

Key aspects of male life in Rome:

• Virtus (courage/virtue)

• Participate in political life by climbing the cursus honorum which starts with military service

• Behave skilled in public speaking

Key aspects of female life in Rome:

• Pudicitia - chastity

• To be frugal and capable of managing business interests

What are the two Roman marriages?

Cum manu - a marriage in which the husband has power over his wife - the wife is wholly transferred into her husband’s family

Sine manu - the wife is still under he father’s patria potestas - she can inherit and own property

Are men and women opposite?

No, women are imperfect forms of the male body

What is hegemonic masculinity?

Free, adult male citizens

What are “un-men”?

Women, boys, slaves, effeminate men, eunuchs and barnarians

What is pederasty?

A socially accepted (Greek) educative and erotic relationship between an adult male and a younger male

What is the erasetes and what is his role?

• The lover (older man)

• Pursues the eromenous

• Provides education in things like politics, philosophy and social customs

• Often gives gifts

What is the eromenous and what is his role?

• The beloved (younger man)

• Chosen for beauty

• Meant to pleasure the erastes

What are the rules of pederasty?

• Neither can be seen as taking a woman’s role

• Sex must be face-to-fact

• The eromenous was not meant to be pleasured

• This relationship can be repeated later in life but less erotic

Male sexual partners in A.G?

• Erastes/eromenous

• Wife

• Prostitues

• Slaves

Female sexual partners in A.G?

• Husband

• Other women? Slaves?

Key principle of Greek sex?

It is more important how you do sexuality that who you do it with