A Day in Old Athens; a Picture of Athenian LifeDavis, William Stearns
History
A Day in Old Athens; a Picture of Athenian Life
Davis, William Stearns
Athens (Greece) -- Social life and customs
In the rear wall of the Andron facing the Andronitis is a solid door.
We are privileged guests indeed if we pass it. Only the father, sons,
or near male kinsmen of the family are allowed to go inside, for it
leads into the _Gynæconitis_, the hall of the women. To thrust oneself
into the Gynæconitis of even a fairly intimate friend is a studied
insult at Athens, and sure to be resented by bodily chastisement,
social ostracism, and a ruinous legal prosecution. The Gynæconitis is
in short the Athenian’s holy of holies. Their women are forbidden to
participate in so much of public life that their own peculiar world is
especially reserved to them. To invade this world is not bad breeding;
it is social sacrilege.
In the present house, the home of a well-to-do family, the Gynæconitis
forms a second pillared court with adjacent rooms of substantially the
same size and shape as the Andronitis. One of the rooms in the very
rear is proclaimed by the clatter of pots and pans and the odor of a
frying turbot to be the kitchen; others are obviously the sleeping
closets of the slave women. On the side nearest to the front of the
house, but opening itself upon this inner court, is at least one bed
chamber of superior size. This is the _Thalamos_, the great bedroom of
the master and mistress, and here are kept all the most costly
furnishings and ornaments in the house. If there are grown-up
unmarried daughters, they have another such bedroom (_anti-thalamos_)
that is much larger than the cells of the slave girls. Another special
room is set apart for the working of wool, although this chief
occupation of the female part of the household is likely to be carried
on in the open inner court itself, if the weather is fine. Here,
around a little flower bed, slave girls are probably spinning and
embroidering, young children playing or quarreling, and a tame quail is
hopping about and watching for a crumb. There are in fact a great many
people in a relatively small space; everything is busy, chattering,
noisy, and confusing to an intruding stranger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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