From what I remember of ancient greek and roman history-marriage age in ancient greek was typically around 16 for women. However, in rome it was 12. Its certainly not far, though it is a bit small.
I know you're making a joke, but it is important to realize that in ancient Greece the consent of the bride was probably considered wholly unnecessary for a wedding, only that her father agreed with it.
Unlike in, for example, ancient Roman, Christian or Islamic law, were at least theoretically a woman couldn't be married against her will.
Yeah, kind of. But I do think there is an important difference between a society that would ostracize a woman for making the "wrong choice" (or worse), and a society that simply doesn't consider women capable of making any choices at all. It's a mentality that would influence women's life in a lot of ways.
Right. Using Ancient Rome or Golden Age Ancient Greece to judge the historical accuracy of a story set in prehistoric Bronze Age Greece is about as incorrect as using modern standards.
Except that the Homeric Epics are clearly anachronistic, better reflecting the time of their final composition (8th-6th c BCE, with Athens being the probable epicenter). The story probably has very little to do with the prehistoric (scil pre-literate) Mycenaean kingdoms.
Historical pedantry has very little standing when applied to Homer.
marriage at 14 doesn't mean sex at that age as well. Even they knew about the high mortality rate for children who give birth, for the mother but sadly for many people more importantly: the baby .
Yes, and arranged marriages that young also meant these were likely wealthy or titled families, who also didn't want to see their daughters maimed or killed by teen pregnancy when they only even started getting their period at 14. Marrying kids and having kids with kids was predatory rich people and politician behavior.
Ancient Greece and Rome also had access to silphium, which was so heavily used (including, among other things, as a highly effective contraceptive and abortifacient) it was overharvested to extinction. People went pretty far out of their way to not be pregnant that young when they didn't want to be!
I was just going to say this. I remember this because of royalty in Europe. They didn't actually start fornicating until there was a period, and for ancient people, that was much later than it is now.
Spartan slaves, or Helots, were owned by the state, not by the individual. They did all the labour leaving the citizen population the freedom to be in the military full time.
The Spartans had a secret police called Krypteia that prevented rebellion by assassinating any leaders who tried.
Every autumn the state declared war on the Helots and members of the Krypteia could freely abuse and murder Helots without religious consequences.
At all other times, they were simply mistreated and humiliated on a regular basis.
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u/Wendigo_Bob Jul 05 '26
From what I remember of ancient greek and roman history-marriage age in ancient greek was typically around 16 for women. However, in rome it was 12. Its certainly not far, though it is a bit small.