Ancient Greek Women Suicides

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When you think of the ancient Greeks, what do you think of? Do you think of the Olympics or democracy or grandiose city-states, such as Athens and Sparta? Well, what you may not have thought about is there being a clandestine aspect of everyday ancient Greek society known as misogyny, or prejudice against women. Ancient Greek women were usually stuck performing domestic labor in the household under the supremacy of men. They could not participate in government, they did not have many rights, and they had to obey the men in their lives. Generally speaking, they were thought to have only one purpose: reproduction. Not many ancient Greeks paid attention to misogyny since it was always an accepted part of ancient Greek society and was rooted deeply…show more content…
There was certainly a difference in how the ancient Greeks perceived male and female suicides. Male suicides were typically viewed as honorable while female suicides were regarded as an act of weakness. Also, misogyny resulted in the ancient Greeks dismissing the fact that the heroines, female heroes, played a significant role in shaping the ancient Greek society. They even went as far as misrepresenting suicide data in order to show how feeble female suicides were to them. Of course, there are modern scholars that would not agree with me. Although one may believe there is no correlation between gender and ancient Greek suicide rates, nevertheless I argue ancient Greek misogyny crafted a divergence in the perceptions of suicide because there was a discrepancy in how the ancient Greeks viewed male and female suicides, which honored men and shamed women; the ancient Greek downplay of heroines; and the misrepresentation of suicide data by the ancient…show more content…
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato contended that any person who committed suicide with a reasonable justification, such as escaping foreseeable death or intense physical and emotion trauma, could be viewed as a caitiff and did not merit the right to be buried “inside the boundaries of the state.”3 In the likes of Plato, Aeschines, a statesman, also disagreed with suicide, but to the extent where he thought the hand that transgressed the crime should be buried separate from the body.3 Other ancient Greek groups and people opposed to the idea of suicide include the mystery cults of the Orphics and Pythagoreans and the philosophers Aristotle and Socrates.3 Indeed, many ancient Greeks disputed suicide, but there were exceptions. The Stoics, Epicureans, and Cyrenaics were all ancient Greek groups that approved of suicide as a means of relieving intense physical and emotional anguish.3 Hegias, a Cyrenaic, even went as far as coaxing people to commit suicide.3 Not only did the ancient Greeks have perceptions of suicide, but their gods and religion did as well. Ancient Greek mythology contained instances of suicide as a result of a loss of honor. Both Ajax and Hercules killed themselves because of a loss of honor, which was a common cause among ancient Greek suicides.3 Most mythological reasons for
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