Ancient
Weddings
by Jennifer
Goodall Powers, SUNY Albany
Original text
© 1997 Jennifer Goodall Powers
Greek Weddings
the sweet
sounding flute and cithara were mingled and sound of castanets,
sweetly the maidens sang a holy song, and a marvelous echo reached
the sky ...1
Introduction
By examining some general facts about Greek
brides about which scholars today agree, we can place the wedding
ceremony in its context of Greek life and ritual. A Greek girl
married young, around 14. Marriage at such a young age was presumed
to guarantee virginity, which, until marriage, was thought to
be threatened by her lustful youth. A young man, on the other
hand, usually performed his military service before getting married,
with the result that he was about 30 when he first married. Furthermore,
the girl was obliged to marry whomever her kyrios, male guardian, decided upon.
In choosing a prospective husband, the kyrios would have
considered political and economic factors. Finally, marriage
to a family member was an acceptable alternative and occasionally
encouraged in order to consolidate family wealth.
Types of Marriage
There were certain
procedures the kyrios followed to marry off his charge, who made
no decisions regarding her future husband and impending marriage.
These procedures depended on the type of marriage intended. The
first type of marriage was characterized by engue, a pledge,
and ekdosis, a transfer. The engue was an oral
agreement between the bride's kyrios and the groom. The
kyrios entrusted his charge to the man for the purpose
of producing children, while reciting the phrase: "I hand
over this woman to you for the ploughing of legitimate children."2 The proix, dowry, was also stipulated at
this time. While engue was a formal procedure which signified
more than betrothal, it did not in itself complete the marriage,
and it could be revoked.3
The ekdosis, the second part of the marriage transaction, effected
the transfer of the woman to her new household. When she married,
a woman gave up ties to her own oikos, household, and
completely adopted and, in effect, was adopted by her husband's
oikos. Her father gave up his role as kyrios, and
her new husband assumed that role. It was during the ekdosis
that the gamos, wedding ceremony, would be held.
If a girl's father
were to die before she married, another type of marriage was
an option for her. 4
Epidikazein was to establish in court by an archon that
the property and daughter of the deceased man should be passed
to the nearest male relative. In the event that a man died without
sons, but with an unmarried daughter, the nearest male relative
succeeded to the estate and married the daughter, called epikleros,
an heiress. If he refused her, the girl and the estate would
pass to the nearest male relative in succession. If this male
relative was already married, but wanted the girl and the estate,
he would divorce his current wife and marry the girl. The point
of such a union was to produce a male heir, who would ultimately
inherit his grandfather's estate and become his mother's kyrios
two years after reaching puberty.5
A third marital-type
union resulted when a family did not have enough money to provide
a dowry for their daughter, but instead gave her to a man as
his pallake, concubine. Again the woman had no voice in the transaction.
The family could even "sell" her to make money. A woman
could also become a pallake if she installed herself without
the help of her oikos, by choosing to cohabitate, sunoikein, with a man. A pallake
was usually foreign. Her own and her children's ability to inherit
changed with time. By fifth-century Athens, the law regarding
free children was the same for wives and concubines.6
The final "marital"
relationship which demands consideration here is that between
a man and an hetaira. Unlike other types of "wives,"
however, hetaira did not live with the men with whom they
were involved. These women could be intelligent, beautiful, and
respected companions for men and were usually foreign.7 They could have sexual
relations with men and were paid, but the women were more than
just sexually proficient high-class prostitutes. They were often
educated in both politics and philosophy, and discussed these
topics with men at symposia.8
On occasion, an hetaira would participate in a monogamous
relationship with a specific man, but as a rule she would not
live with him. If she did, she would then be considered a pallake.
Aspasia, one of the most famous hetairai,
became Pericles' concubine around 445 B.C. after impressing him
with her broad knowledge and opinions on the day's political
affairs. The only difference in their relationship that caused
this change in designation for her was the status of their living
arrangement.
Footnotes:
1.
Sappho, fragment 44, lines 24 - 27, the Wedding of Hektor
and Andromache. The translation is my own.
2.
Menander, fr. 720.
3.
For more on the legality of engue, see Patterson, Cynthia B.
1991. "Marriage and the Married Woman in Athenian Law"
in Sarah B. Pomeroy (ed.) Women¹s History and Ancient
History. Chapel Hill: 48-72. Here Patterson discusses engue
and gamos as the most important parts of the marriage procedure.
She stresses that engue was the private part of the procedure,
but that it also established legitimacy for the union and the
children it produced.
4.
By the fourth century, however, this practice had become uncommon,
though why exactly is uncertain.
5.
The property and the mother would pass to the control of the
sons upon reaching puberty because the purpose of this type of
marriage was not to establish a union, but to continue the line
of the dead father. The husband was even required by law to engage
in sexual intercourse with his wife at least three times a month
in order to beget heirs for the dead father and not himself.
In contrast, in an engue marriage, the husband would beget his
own heirs.
6.
Sealey, Raphael. 1990. Women and Law in Classical Greece.
Chapel Hill, 25-36. During the Peloponnesian War, Athenian citizenship
laws were relaxed in order to repopulate the society with males.
7.
Aspasia was from Ionia, for example.
8.
Generally, citizen women were not educated and were not allowed
to attend symposia.
