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Women in Classical Athens (5th and 4th centuries BC) were generally held in lower regard than men. Their exact status depended on whether they were a slave, metic, or freeborn woman, as well as on their occupation, yet, even freeborn women were not considered to be true citizens, and lacked the political freedoms that Athenian adult men had. ==Childhood== Infant mortality rates were high in the ancient world, with perhaps 25% dying at or soon after birth, and Sarah Pomeroy suggests that in addition to the natural risks of childbirth, infanticide would have been practiced by Athenians, with girls more likely to be killed than boys. Grossman says that girls appear to be commemorated about as often as boys on surviving Attic gravestones, though previous scholars have suggested that boys were commemorated up to twice as often. Athenian girls, like their brothers, were named in a ceremony ten days after their birth, known as the ''dekate''. The other ceremonies to celebrate childbirth – at five, seven, and forty days after the birth, respectively – were also observed for both boys and girls. Later rites of passage, however, seem to have been more common for boys than girls, as well as more elaborate. Though boys could be adopted by men lacking an heir, it would have been rare that girls were. Hagnias, who adopted his niece in 396 BC, would have been extremely unusual in doing so.〔 Classical Athenian girls probably reached menarche at the age of fourteen, at which point they would have married. Girls who died before marriage were mourned for their failure to reach this point. Memorial vases for dead girls in classical Athens often portrayed her dressed as a bride, and were sometimes shaped like those used to transport water used to bathe before the wedding day. Athenian girls were not formally educated, needing only the domestic skills necessary for the running of the household, which would have been taught to them by their mothers. Classical art shows that girls, as well as boys, played with toys such as spinning tops, hoops, and seesaws, as well as games such as piggyback. The gravestone of Plangon, an Athenian girl aged about five, now in the Munich Glyptothek, shows her holding a doll and with knucklebones. We know more about the role of Athenian children in religion than we do about any other aspect of Athenian children's lives, and Athenian children seem to have played quite a prominent role in religious ceremonies. We know that Athenian girls made offerings to Artemis on the eve of their marriage, as well as during pregnancy and at childbirth.〔 Though they are less common, girls as well as boys are portrayed on ''choes'' – jugs connected with the ''Anthesteria'', the spring festival where Athenian children would have had their first taste of wine.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Women in Classical Athens」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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