Women in Ancient Society - Research Paper Example

Women in Ancient Society Women’s studies in the second-half of the twentieth-century are largely skewed to discover evidence that women in ancient societies were highly constrained with no rights or opportunities of their own. By reading materials produced in this time period, one might assume modern women’s rights are the result of an upward curve leading from extreme oppression at the dawn of time to today’s nearly free Modern Woman. However, understanding some of the elements of society as they existed in the past reveal this may not be the case. For example, marriage laws in the earliest recorded civilizations gave women far higher recognition than many civilizations that came later. In ancient Sumer, five thousand years ago, women’s wedding contracts guaranteed a respect that is still lacking in some countries today. In ancient Egypt, the power of feminine sexuality and mystery was reflected in art and politics. The Old Testament codified marriage laws and the New Testament extended the idea to include God as an investor in the union. It was Medieval Christianity’s theological interpretation of sexuality was responsible for a society that understood women as the source of sin and led to her suppression within the social sphere. However, even here, things might not have been as bad as modern writers illustrate. An examination of some of the art of the Byzantine era illustrates that women, at least some women, still managed to retain a significant level of power and influence even during this heavily Christian-influenced age. It is true that the Byzantine era was characterized by today’s stereotypical understanding of women’s depressed position in ancient societies at least among the lower classes. The church played a powerful role in subjugating women, often introducing legal stipulations which limited the actions of women as a means of preventing defilement and impurity, but couldn’t refuse the generosity and donations of the wealthy (Viscuso, 2005: 317). Thus, women belonging to the aristocracy did not necessarily fall under this distinction or suffer this fate. According to Grubbs, “The law determined, according to status, the sexual relationships and roles open to a woman, and the amount of protection from violence or exploitation she could expect” (2001: 221). Through marriage, aristocratic women were able to gain status by acquiring a legal share in the power wielded by their husbands. In some cases, these women were even able to wield power directly having been given her husband’s authority. By using marriage as a tool and with the protection of the law as it applied to women of a particular social status, women of this period were able to siphon off a large amount of the power normally enjoyed by men. This practice, while not necessarily recorded in the documentary record of the period, can be traced through the art of the age. The concept that women held a great degree of power within society is evident in the pictorial records of the church, which reflect figures of female strength and authority from antiquity such as the Virgin Mary and numerous female saints. Evidence can also be found by tracing the patronage of various pieces of religious artwork and in the artwork of the state. The Virgin Mary is, of course, one of the major symbols of the Christian faith, but there is an underlying message behind her figure that has often spoken to women and provided them with an example. This subtext can be traced in a thirteenth century panel currently held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art (2007). The Madonna, 13th Century The image depicts Mary sitting on a richly upholstered chair, depicted in three-dimensional perspective, and with her feet resting lightly on a footstool. This pose is deliberately suggestive of images of royalty, presenting her as the Queen of the World and thus imbuing her with the suggestion of actual social power. “With her red shoes and the archangels’ imperial regalia, the elaborate throne underscores Mary’s role as queen of Heaven” (National Gallery of Art, 2001). Within the image, Mary’s figure is draped, as is the custom, in a deep blue cloth, which was intended to convey a sense of her purity as the Virgin. However, within this cloth, there are several delicate hints of gold strands that indicate her material wealth and again suggest she has a power of her own. Her pose faces the young Jesus who sits in her lap and is intended to demonstrate how this woman is the example for the world, but this also serves to establish her as a leader of society as well as emphasizes her importance to this society as the mother (and caretaker) of children. Since religion was one area in which women were allowed to directly participate as an outward sign of their own purity and chastity, this image necessarily focused on an acceptable image for the times, but in the choice of subject and means of depiction, it also managed to convey a great deal of female power held both in antiquity as well as in the time period in which the image was created. In the church of the Virgin Blachernitissa near Arta, evidence exists that the church was once used as a nunnery and, contains one of the more revealing images regarding the importance of women to the regular worship cycles of earlier societies. According to Gerstal (1998: 91), one of the more important and adhered to traditions in Constantinople was the carrying of the Hodegetria icon through the town in a special procession each Tuesday. This event is not only commemorated in artwork found in the Blachernitissa narthex, but evidence of it also exists in several written accounts of pilgrims who were eyewitnesses to this event. These accounts as well as the pictorial record indicate the crowds that came to watch the procession was very diverse, consisting of nearly equal parts men and women. They also make it immediately clear that women had an important role to play in this weekly celebration. Within the image, all of the people pictured in the foreground of the image are women and women also surround the icon-carriers. The image only shows a few male onlookers discovered at the back of the crowd. “Myrtali Potamianou has suggested that three of the women depicted in the foreground were members or relatives of the ruling family of Epiros. Their inclusion, and the artistic emphasis on female attendance at the Constantinopolotan procession, would have resonated loudly with the Blachernitissa’s nuns, who could, by visual association, undertake their own symbolic pilgrimage to the capital in order to venerate the all-holy icon” (Gerstal, 1998: 91). Whether painted strictly for the benefit of nuns or for the more general population, the underlying message of women as a powerful social force is unmistakable and undeniable. Other examples of women of strength from antiquity portrayed within the art of the Byzantine era include Saints Catherine, Helena, Barbara, Panteleimon, Juliane, Marina and Anna, as well as other female saints that have not been identified. The honoring of so many female saints in this way, during a period supposedly so oppressive to women that they all but disappeared, helps to illustrate that while women might have been expected to take a subservient position to men as a result of Christian doctrine, they nevertheless retained a significant amount of influence and power within their worlds, both in antiquity and in the Byzantine era. This argument only becomes stronger when one considers that the positions of these images were placed so as to remind female as well as male attendants of the importance and significance of women. They continuously demonstrate how women were frequently involved in all areas of worship. Through images such as these with underlying subtexts of numerous ancient women with power and authority in the social setting, women of the upper classes often discovered how marriage might open up new possibilities for their own futures. While women who were fortunate enough to marry into royalty had the option of living an indolent life of luxury, they were also discovering that they had the ability to gain power in politics or even religion. They did this either through direct or indirect actions. Indirect actions could take the form of sponsoring increasing works of art that communicated to women at all social levels that they had once held greater social authority while direct actions demonstrated how they might again. When modern audiences look back on these time periods with judgment, they would do well to analyze just what is being communicated to women in their own time period. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the various concepts of women that were presented in mainstream films during a 50-year period spanning from the 1920s to the 1970s. This is a period characterized by a great shift from social constraint for women to one dominated by the ‘liberated woman’. Rosen and Haskell each adopted an approach to film as a reflection of current trends in society rather than shapers of it. This approach can be applied retroactively to the available media of the past as in images found in public artistic expression. While the media of the long-ago past was dominated by women of strength, character and power, “in the 1920s … Hollywood focused on women who worked in blue-collar occupations, thereby creating the impression that women were non-achievers, yet Rosen cites examples of women who did hold important societal positions, women such as the female zoologist Delia Akeley” (Hollows & Jancovich, 1995: 157). Female roles available in the 1960s presented three basic character types to contemporary audiences. These included the dumb blonde, the sex object and the whimpering victim (Seger 1990). As women have taken up greater social roles and responsibilities, these depictions have been changing, slowly moving away from the depiction of the buxom yet wasp-waisted blonde toward more naturalistic portrayals of average women struggling to achieve average goals in life (Douglas, 1994). As women have gained greater control over the images shown in the media, representations of women have again begun to reflect a more rounded view of women and investigations into the role of women in antiquity have begun to recognize greater dimensions. This correlation between women’s freedom in society and women’s ability to discern freedom in society is suspicious. The materials available to the modern world from antiquity haven’t changed, nor has the fundamental elements of the Byzantine world of yesteryear. Throughout the past century, women writing about the past have emphasized the degree to which women were oppressed under the heavy hand of church and man. As women have gained true levels of freedom of choice and action both public and private, they have become increasingly capable of discovering evidence from antiquity and throughout history of women who retained power and authority despite the perceived oppressiveness of the period. While it is undoubtedly true that women, particularly those in the lower classes, were oppressed at various times in history and in various geographic locations, it is important to remember that the laws were not always universally applicable enabling women of higher social class to provide role models and inspiration for other women for either positive or negative outcome. The positive outcome of old works of art reflecting ancient society seems obvious when one takes the time to analyze the subtext. However, when one analyzes the art of the modern world, the negative outcomes of the subtext in the establishment of an impossible definition of female identity based upon outer features, one needs to question just which society was more oppressive to women’s psyches. Works Cited Douglas, Susan. “Media: A Girl’s Friend and Foe.” Where the Girls Are. Center for Media Literacy. (1994). March 13, 2009 Gerstel, Sharon E.J. “Painted Sources for Female Piety in Medieval Byzantium.” Dunbarton Oaks Papers. Harvard University, 1998. Grubbs, Judith. “Virgins and Widows, Show –Girls and Whores: Late Roman Legislation on Women and Christianity.” Law, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity. Ed. Ralph Mathisen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Hollows, Joanne & Jancovich, Mark. Approaches to Popular Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. National Gallery of Art. “Tour: Byzantine Art and Painting in Italy during the 1200s and 1300s.” The Collection. Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2007. Object 1. Seger, Linda. “How to Evaluate Media Images of Women.” Media and Values. Vol. 49, (Winter 1990). Center for Media Literacy. March 13, 2009 Viscuso, Patrick. “Theodore Balsamon’s Canonical Images of Women”. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. Vol. 45, N. 3, 2005. Read More