Women In Grecian Society

“Poor men! We sold away our freedom of speech and our comfort and lead the life of slaves with our wives. We are not free. We can’t say we don’t pay a price for their dowries: bitterness and women’s anger. compared [sic] to that, a man’s is honey, for men forgive when someone does them wrong, but women do you wrong and keep on recriminating” (64). This quote accurately shows the opinions and negative feelings men had towards their wives and other women. To most men, women were simply known as burdens that made their husbands’ lives more difficult. These men would even go as far as calling their wives lazy, even though their wives would work just as hard, if not harder than their husbands. A woman was hardly ever given the credit she deserved. …show more content…
One of key qualities men were looking for in a woman was physical beauty. They were more worried about the physical appearance of a woman than any personality characteristics. Due to society being harsh and severe about beauty, women would try to rebuild and remodel their own bodies to fit the “ideal woman” shape and appearance. This is very important for all women in the Roman and Grecian societies, but especially for prostitutes. Prostitutes wanted to draw in men, and these prostitute women did anything to complete that. “Supposed one of them is small; cork is sewn into her shoes. Tall? she [sic] wears thin slippers and goes around with her head pitched towards her shoulder; that reduces her height. No hips? she puts on a bustle, and the onlookers make comments about her nice bottom. They have false breasts for them like the comic actors’; they set them on straight out and pull their dresses forwards as if with punting poles” (287). This quote shows how desperate women were for physical beauty. Even though this quote is particularly pertaining to prostitutes, other women carried out similar actions to obtain a more captivating appearance. Some women went even further than that, too. Women changed their eyebrows and skin color if they believe it is too light or dark. Women smeared on white lead, painted with lamp-black, and rubbed on rouge to fix their impurities with their eyebrows and skin color (287). Women had to impress men, and to do that they simply had to be as beautiful and charming as they could. An example of a beautiful “ideal woman” during this time was Allia Potestas. “Her skin was white, she had beautiful eyes, and her hair was gold? An ivory glow always shone from her face-no-mortal (so they say) every possessed a face like it. The curves of her breasts was [sic] small on her snow-white bosom. And her legs? Such is the guise of Atalanta