In ancient Greece, while most women were confined to the home, the women of Sparta enjoyed a revolutionary degree of freedom, receiving physical training, education, and economic power that was unparalleled in their time.
Between the 7th and 4th centuries B.C., Sparta’s unique military-focused society, which required men to live most of their lives in barracks, left women in charge of domestic and social affairs.
This gave them a more central role than their counterparts in cities like Athens.
Ancient sources like the writer Plutarch describe Spartan girls running, wrestling, and throwing javelins in public, a practice meant to ensure they would bear strong children for the state.
Their education also included music, poetry, and dance, with the lyrical poems of Alcman used to instill community values.
Perhaps most strikingly, Spartan women could own and inherit land, giving them significant economic independence.
They also married later, around age 18, and drank wine openly at social gatherings, a freedom that shocked other Greeks.
While these liberties were ultimately in service to the state's military machine, the legacy of Spartan women endures as a remarkable and contradictory example of female autonomy in the ancient world.
By Konstantinos Tsavalos