Plato's Symposium: Adultery For Ancient Greek Women

It is not a secret that Ancient greek society was a patriarchal one. Women lived exceedingly suppressed lives by either their father or by their husband. Ancient greek women were not allowed in social gatherings in fear that their natural instinct would be to seduce men, with the exception of certain social gatherings such as a funeral. A respectable woman’s role was to stay chaste until marriage, stay at home and run the daily household, weave, and bare legitimate children. Her life was always controlled by a male figure and it centered around the house and her children. Laws were then formed to ensure this lifestyle and prevent the possibility of adultery for ancient greek women. “According to Athenian law, if a husband caught his wife’s …show more content…
The first speech is spoken by Phaedrus and he speaks about the virtue and bravery of love. He states that love is the oldest, thus love being the wisest, will lead men towards love that will lead them to good lives above everything else. He gives accounts of Achilles and Alcestis in which Alcestis self-sacrifices herself for her lover which exemplifies the bravery of love. He associates the idea of love behind wise men who are able to choose the right lovers. The second speech is spoken by Pausanias who splits his definition of love into two types: Common Love and Celestial Love. Common love is defined to be a heteroerotic love, while “the Love who accompanies Celestial Aphrodite is wholly male, with no trace of femininity.” (181c) Phaedrus praises Celestial Love and not Common Love because it is the directed towards bodies rather than the mind which he sees as less intelligent. He concludes that love is to produce virtue and should not be pursued by other reasons, in others words, not Common Love. It is evident that Pausanias prefers the homoerotic love over the heteroic love because he sees it as more intelligent. The third speech is spoken by Eryximachus who is a doctor and relates love to medicine. Just like in medicine, his job is to get rid of the bad and implant the good; there is a bad love and that there is also a good love. He relates the good and …show more content…
He mentions that he once used to the share the same opinion as Agathon, that love was a great god and he belonged to beautiful things. However, Diotima persuaded him otherwise. Socrates, who is said to be one of the founders of western philosophy, was being persuaded by a female philosopher. Socrates begins to tell the recounts of Diotima’s views on love on what has already been said but furthers for progression. Socrates begins to give the speech of his interaction with Diotima; Diotima states that love is neither good nor bad in which Socrates questions is love ugly and bad then? Diotima then scolds Socrates in saying that things do not necessarily need to have an opposite and just how there is an in between wisdom and ignorance, there is also an in between for love. They continue to speak and come to an agreement that love is not a God because he is in need of good and beautiful things which suggest that he does not have them.Diotima then explains to Socrates that love is a spirit which is between mortal and immortal. She explains that spirits act as an intermediary for the immortal and the mortal. This brings the premise of Diotima’s speech in which she explains on how Love was born and why he follows Aphrodite. Love is the child of Resource and Poverty. Love is poor and always in a state of need but is able to get what he wants. He is in between wisdom and