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ELI5: This Ancient Athens quote about women.

Thucydides rounds off the funeral speech attributed to Pericles: " The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about among men, whether in praise or blame".  


I am doing literature study about Ancient Athens and that's the quote I found in one of the books, could someone explain it with the context of the women's status in those days?
gpt
The Athenian ideal for women was to remain invisible to society. Athenian women as a rule did not engage in public life (politics, philosophy, science, poetry, drama, athletics, war) and did not own property. At the extreme, women of the upper class were encouraged to remain isolated at home (though very few probably actually did this).

To be praised for one's beauty was to invite charges of infidelity, to be praised for one's mind was to be seen as masculine. To be talked of negatively , as promiscuous, or shrewish or whatever, was obviously bad. A woman therefore should be essentially unknown to male society.

There were women who engaged more directly with male society. Foreign women were permitted to own property and engage in business. And the haeterae were a class of courtesan, many foreign, who provided entertainment to men. In addition to sex, they composed and read poetry, played music, discussed philosophy and politics, etc. Some, in fact, made fortunes without providing sexual services. The most famous of these women was Phryne, said to be so beautiful that when tried before the Areopagus on blasphemy charges all she had to do to be acquitted as display her naked body to the judges.

But these were not ideal women. They were immodest, masculine, promiscuous and often foreign. They were frequent topics of discussion among men, but not for "good" reasons.