• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, 1000 B.C.E.-450 c.E. •
centuries. A strong Nestorian minority survived in the Islamic Middle East CHAPTER 8
until it was scattered by Mongol invasions in the 13th century. (It reentered
China at that point, where it won some renewed tolerance.) GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL
Because the classical period placed such emphasis on the integration of CIVILIZATIONS
distinct civilizations and cultures, surprising results might accrue when so-
cieties came into contact—as in the Indian-Hellenistic interlude. Surpris-
ing results also followed the combination of unprecedented commitments
to spreading religion and the weakening of the classical civilizations them-
selves. While missionary activity had been a recurrent part of Indian his-
tory during the classical period, it was much newer in China and the
Mediterranean, where most cultural efforts had stayed within the civiliza- The classical period introduced vital new developments in gender rela-
tion itself. Cultural contacts responded to larger shake-ups, and in turn, tions. Each civilization generated some characteristic family arrangements,
they created additional disruption and opportunity. These developments, including how spouses were selected. More important still was the estab-
while forming distinctive regional paths as in Armenia, also helped set in lishment of clear ideas about gender associated with each of the major cul-
motion the larger dynamic of the next, postclassical stage of world history. tural systems. Confucianism, Hinduism, and Mediterranean philosophy
formulated specific notions about men's and women's qualities and roles.
These cultural formulations helped stiffen gender relations, because they
Conclusion could be passed down from generation to generation and become part of
The innovations needed to pull larger territories into effective societies un- basic socialization patterns, creating unexamined perceptions among men
derpinned major developments in statecraft and culture alike. Ordinary and women alike.
people in the classical civilizations still might have only irregular contact The gender structures that developed in the world's classical civiliza-
with government officials, while preserving older beliefs and rituals. But tions built on those created in the earlier river-valley civilizations, rigidi-
their lives changed with the expansion of government claims and functions fying the existing distinctions between men and women and adding new
and with new patterns of belief among priests and landowners. As culture sources through which these were supported and justified. The growing
contacts increased to include the dissemination of dynamic religions such importance of sons generated a system, particularly in China and the
as Buddhism and Christianity, even ordinary people experienced new goals Mediterranean, in which unwanted girl babies might simply be put to
in life, new standards for measuring work or death or family relationships. death, in a practice called female infanticide. As law codes were ex-
Developments in work, disease, and gender patterns helped measure the panded, women's legal disabilities grew, and new restrictions were added
impact of political and cultural change—and also the continued limits to on women at certain points in their life cycle, such as widowhood. In
controlling the human condition through formal institutions or organized the epic stories told about the founding of classical civilizations, such as
beliefs. the Ramayana in India and the Aeneidm Rome, female characters either
loyally support the hero or attempt to thwart him on his mission; they
do not do great deeds on their own. In the philosophical systems that
became the basis for Chinese and Mediterranean civilizations—Confu-
cianism and the Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, respectively—
women were regarded as necessary to the natural order of the universe
141
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• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, iooo B. C .E. -4 5 0 C.E. • • GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIQ NS
but clearly inferior and in need of male control. Along with these philo- Ganga and Yamuna with Attendants. A sculpture of the river goddess Ganga (Ganges) from 9th-
century India, portraying her as life-giving. Reprinted by permission of the Los Angeles County
sophical systems, religious beliefs that regarded women as both inferior and
"
dangerous to men's spiritual well-being grew more widespread during the
classical period. Both philosophy and religion developed certain key texts that
were memorized, discussed, debated, and elaborated in schools and other
types of educational establishments generally open to men only. As the social
distinctions between groups within civilizations grew more rigid, high-status
men felt it increasingly important to seclude their daughters and wives from
other men, and special women's quarters—termed the gyneceum in ancient
Athens—were built within houses or house compounds.
As they had in river-valley civilizations, women occasionally ruled
territories in the classical period; female rulers whose names are known range
from Lady Ahpo-Hel of Palenque among the Maya in the Yucatan to Empress
Wu in China. Women's rule was often informal—they took over when their
sons were young or their husbands were ill—but occasionally they ruled in
their own right. Queens and empresses made significant contributions to the
development of political structures, intellectual and cultural institutions, and
religious systems, but their reigns were usually portrayed later as marked by
turmoil and instability, if not worse. A woman who had power over a male
ruler, for instance, his wife or concubine, was also generally portrayed in
official histories as scheming and evil, with court historians and chroniclers—
most or whom were male—developing a stereotype of the weak ruler as one
who let himself be advised by women.
Classical civilizations were not monolithic, however, and traditions also
developed within them that lessened the distinctions between women and men
in ways that were regarded as especially significant. In three of the major
religions that developed during this period, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Museum of Art, the Nasli and Alice Heeramancck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase.
Christianity, women were regarded as capable of obtaining the ultimate
spiritual goal—perhaps through a longer and more difficult process than men women were active in winning adherents and in developing their own rituals.
had to undergo but not cut off from the goal entirely. In all three religions, These three religions, and also several smaller ones that developed during the
devotion to gods (Hinduism) or particularly holy figures (Buddhism and classical period, such as Jainism in India, came to offer at least a few women
Christianity) provided male and female adherents with a feminine ideal and the opportunity to choose a life of religious devotion instead of marriage and
object of devotion. Though in all three religions the most important leaders motherhood.
and thinkers were men,
142 '•/v
• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, 1000 B.C.E.-450 c.E. • • GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS •
often harsh and unkind treatment of young women in real life. (In the
Family Structures
Mediterranean and, later, in the rest of Europe, where mothers-in-law usually
Other than individuals who remained unmarried for religious reasons, and—in did not live in the same household with a married couple, this is not a
some cultures—slaves, most people in classical cultures married, and the common theme; here, the malicious older woman who causes harm is
family group was the central institution. This family group varied in size and generally a stepmother.)
composition from culture to culture, and within one culture, according to Despite conflicts in real life, marriage and motherhood were increasingly
wealth and social status. In some areas of the world most households were idealized during the classical period. Girls were trained from a very young
nuclear, made up largely of parents and their children, with perhaps one or age in the skills and attitudes that would make them good wives and mothers,
two other relatives; in others, an extended family of brothers and their spouses instructed that their primary purpose in life was to serve their husbands and
and children lived in a single household or family compound. Wealthier children. Weddings were central occasions in a family's life, with spouses
households also contained unrelated servants and slaves and, often, younger chosen carefully by parents, other family members, or marriage brokers.
relatives whose parents had died or older widows. All these individuals, Much of a family's resources often went to pay for the ceremony and setting
whether adults or children, blood relatives or unrelated, were generally under up the new household. Opportunities for divorce varied in the classical world,
the authority of the male head of household, usually the grandfather or oldest but in many cultures it was nearly impossible, so the choice of a spouse was
married brother in an extended household. Boys as well as girls remained undertaken carefully, after much consultation with relatives and often with
under their father's control until they married, and perhaps beyond if they astrologers or other people who predicted the future. Weddings themselves
continued to live in an extended household. were held on days determined to be lucky or auspicious, a determination
Most classical cultures were patrilocal, with women leaving their own arrived at independently for each couple.
families on marriage and going to live with their husbands, often in a different Because most classical cultures were patrilineal, giving birth to sons was
village. In some cultures, the woman retained strong ties to her birth family central to a continuation of the family line, with women and men offering
and considered herself part of two families, whereas in others these ties were prayers and sacrifices to accomplish this and marking sons' births with special
weak, with the woman contacting her birth family only in grave emergencies. ceremonies or rituals not performed for the births of daughters. Additional
In China, for example, a woman was never inscribed on the official family list ceremonies were conducted throughout boys' early years to keep them
of her birth family, so that she would never be honored as one of their healthy, in an effort to counteract the high rates of child mortality created by
ancestors by later generations; she was instead inscribed on that of her diseases. Women also carried out other rituals within the household designed
husband's family once she had had a son. Women who had no sons simply to maintain family harmony, promote the family's well-being, and assure the
disappeared from family memory. In cultures in which extended families lived favor of spirits and deities. Most of the religious systems accepted in classical
together or in close proximity to one another, a woman came under the control cultures were highly ritualistic, with the performance of certain rites and
of her father- and mother-in-law as well as her husband when she married. ceremonies regarded as more important than holding any specific belief, so
Because relationships between mothers and sons were often intense in these that these actions gave meaning to women's lives, making them important in
cultures that put so much emphasis on male children, a new bride's interaction the maintenance of culturally significant values.
with her mother-in-law was often very difficult. Spiteful and cruel mothers-in- The injunction to marry did not simply apply to women, however.
law became stock figures in the literature and stories of classical cultures— Unmarried men in most classical cultures were not regarded as fully adult,
particularly in China and India—reflecting what was and until the advent of Buddhism and Christianity, there were no
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• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, 1000 B. C.E. -450 c.E. • ■ GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS •
institutionalized forms of lifelong celibacy for men, though they might spend
Beyond the Family
a period of time as students before they were married or as religious devotees
away from their families once they had married and had the necessary sons. Though both women and men derived their identities largely from their
Marriage, rather than signifying simply the attaining of a specific age, was the families, in both theory and reality, men were also involved in the world
way in which men normally escaped the control of their own fathers. It beyond the household. The family served as the basis for men's place in the
remained a permanent state for most men; women whose first husband died world, whereas for women it was the location of their place in the world.
often lived the rest of their lives as widows—in some classical cultures, they Though they might learn to read and write, women in classical cultures
came to have no other option— but men quickly remarried. Having children, generally did so within the household, while upper-class men attended
particularly sons, was just as important for men as for women, perhaps even schools, academies, and other formal institutions of learning. Women's re-
more so, and various ways were devised to provide sons for a man whose ligious rituals sometimes took them to a neighborhood temple but more often
wife did not have one: taking second or third wives or concubines, were performed at household altars and shrines. Women's occupations were
legitimizing a son born of a woman who was not a wife or concubine, often those that could be done within the walls of a house, such as spinning
adopting a nephew or an unrelated boy or young man. A woman whose and weaving. Increasingly in classical cultures, the only women seen outside
husband had died before she gave birth to a son might be expected to remarry the household were those of low status—servants and slaves bringing water
his brother, so as to produce a son that was legally regarded as the child of her from wells or marketing in classical Greece, lower-caste women weaving or
deceased husband. (This practice is called a levirate marriage.) making the black eye makeup termed khol in India, peasants whose work
The kingdoms and empires of the classical world regarded the family as needs required collaboration between men and women. Thus this spatial
the basis of society—population was generally counted by households, not by separation of men and women was an issue of social as well as gender
individuals, with rights to participate in positions of political and religious structures, for the women who were most likely to be found outside the
leadership determined by membership in certain families or clans. household, in contact with men who were not members of their families, were
Intellectuals also saw the family as the basis of society in political and social those of low status.
theory, the microcosm of larger society and the place in which cultural values This link between public appearances and status can be seen most dra-
were anchored. In classical China, for example, Confucianism taught that the matically in the case of women who provided sexual services and enter-
order and harmony of the universe began with order and harmony in the tainment for men, mainly in the cities. Along with women who supported
smallest human unit; if things were disrupted in families, they would themselves through prostitution, in most classical cultures there were also
necessarily be disrupted in the larger political realms. In Rome as well, some who combined sexual services with dancing, singing, and educated
military victories and defeats were often attributed not simply to the skill of conversation, often in government-run brothels. Such women had a very
armies but also to the stability or instability of family life. Classical Athens ambiguous position: they were clearly dishonorable, and their children could
broke with this to some degree, but here, too, political theorists such as Plato not be married into good families, but they also might be quite wealthy and
thought that the family and state were intimately related to one another; the highly educated. Even among such women, however, status was determined
perfect state, wrote Plato in The Republic, could be achieved only if political by level of seclusion; high-status courtesans had their own households or at
leaders were separated from their families at birth, so that they were not least remained inside brothels, whereas low-status prostitutes walked the
tempted to make decisions that would benefit their relatives. streets.
In many ways, not only prostitutes but all women had an ambiguous
relationship to the institutions and structures that were developing in classical
cultures, while the male experience was more straightforward. A man
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• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, iooo B.C.E.-450 C.E. • • GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS •
in classical Athens or Rome was either a citizen or not and had certain rights China
and privileges based on his status; a man in classical India belonged to a certain
caste and performed the rituals required of that caste; a man in China who took By the period of the Zhou dynasty, certain structures were in place in China
the imperial scholarly examination could obtain a position as a court official or that made the life experiences of women and men dramatically different. The
governor. Women in Athens were not citizens, though they could pass this aristocracy came to have surnames, which determined the clan to which an
status on to their sons; in India, they married only within the caste of their upper-class man belonged and to which he owed loyalty and obedience. This
loyalty was due not only to living members of his clan but also to his
fathers, but they did not go through a ceremony marking their caste status or
ancestors, for upper-class men were expected to carry out a series of rituals
need to observe most rituals regarding purity and pollution; in China, they
honoring their ancestors throughout their life and to have sons so that these
wrote poetry and occasionally histories but could never hold an official position
rituals could continue. Honoring the ancestors became an integral part of
or take the imperial examinations. A woman's position in any of the social
Confucianism, which also emphasized the balanced but hierarchical
groups that were becoming increasingly distinct in the classical period was
relationship between Heaven—the superior, creative element—and Earth—
generally mediated by her relationship to a man and could change on marriage,
the inferior, receptive one. Proper human relationships, especially family
remarriage, or widowhood. Thus, for her, the rhythm of her personal life
relationships, were those that were modeled on the relationship of Heaven and
cycle—when she married, whether she had children and how many, when her
Earth, hierarchical and orderly. All aspects of family relationships had proper
husband died—was generally more important than it was for most men, whose
etiquette and rituals attached, which became more elaborate over the centuries
lives were shaped more by large economic patterns or by the political institu-
and were recorded in books, including the Five Classics that formed the basis
tions that are generally seen as the central accomplishment of classical cultures.
of Confucian teachings. Though both women and men were viewed as es-
Though individual women often had a great deal of political power, politics was
sential to the cosmic order, women were expected to be subordinate and
generally conceptualized and to a large degree practiced as a system that
deferential; these expectations were codified as the "three obediences" to
regulated relations between men. In all classical civilizations, lower-class
which a woman was subject—to her father as a daughter, to her husband as a
women suffered less inequality in relation to men than most of their upper-class
wife, and to her son as a widow. The other major philosophical-religious
sisters. Their work was essential to the family economy, which prevented their
system of classical China, Taoism, promoted stronger notions of male-female
being completely subordinated or confined to decorative and marital roles.
complementarity, but even Taoists, as well as later Chinese Buddhists and
Christians, grew up in a system that emphasized gender hierarchy.
Cultural Differences The most powerful women in classical China were those attached to the
imperial household as the emperor's wives and concubines or as the widows
So far we have been discussing developments in gender structures that were
of former emperor. The principal wife of an emperor was considered the legal
shared by many classical cultures, but these did not work in precisely the
mother of all his children, no matter who their biological mother might be.
same fashion in each civilization. Particular cultures placed different
When an emperor died, this woman became the empress dowager, and she
emphases on gender distinctions and supported different kinds of family
was often the most important woman at court, for she generally chose the
arrangements, and women had slightly different opportunities to
spouses for the children of the emperor and often controlled who had regular
accommodate themselves to patterns of change in each society. Thus
access to the new emperor. The few women in classical China who became
comparison must be added to gain an understanding of the overall direction of
highly learned were generally attached to the
change.
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• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, 1000 B.C.E.-450 C.E. • • GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS •
imperial household and, despite their own learning, often agreed with There were also traditions that stressed the power of women. Many of the
Confucian teachings about women's inferiority. Hindu deities are goddesses, who range from beneficient life-givers, such as
Land in China—the most basic form of wealth—was held largely by Devi and Ganga, to faithful spouses, such as Parvati and Radha, to fierce
aristocratic families, passed jointly from generation to generation by the male destroyers and disease bearers, such as Kali and Durga. Women performed
members of the lineage. Because daughters left the family on marriage, they religious rituals either on their own or with their husbands and were active in
had no rights to land, although complicated exceptions were occasionally the bhakti movements, popular devotional movements that stressed intense
made for girls who had no brothers, in which they held land in trust for their mystical experiences. Hindu stories stressed women's service to men but also
sons or in which their husbands were adopted into the family. Some peasant gave credit to initiative, cleverness, love, and sensuality—ingredients
families also owned land and, like nobles, passed it down in the patrilineage, different from the emphases of Confucian culture in China. For its part, in
although many were completely landless and worked on noble estates. Almost theory the Buddhist path to enlightenment (nirvana, or nibbana) is open to all
all peasants married, not because of Confucian principles but because marital regardless of sex or caste; one needs simply to shed all earthly desires.
couples and their children were the basic unit of agricultural production; Like Confucianism, Hinduism saw family life and procreation as reli-
procreation was an economic necessity, to supply supplementary family labor gious duties; all men and women were expected to marry, and anything that
and replace population lost to disease, and not simply a religious duty. interfered with procreation, including exclusively homosexual attachments,
was seen as negative. In Buddhism, the spritually superior life was one that
renounced all earthly desires, including sexual ones, and nuns and monks
India were warned about both homosexual and heterosexual relationships.
Hinduism and Buddhism were the most important determinants of gender Buddhism was never completely comfortable with women who gave up
structures in classical India because they shaped all aspects of life, not simply family life, however, and the ideal woman in Buddhism—both historically
what we might consider the religious realm. Both of these religions came to and in sacred texts—was more often than not a married woman with children
incorporate many different ideas and traditions, some of which stressed gender who supported a community of monks or who assisted men in their spiritual
hierarchy and some gender complementarity. In Hinduism, higher-caste boys progress, rather than a nun.
and men went through various ceremonies marking their status and spent a
period of time studying sacred texts, while girls and women did not. A girl Classical Mediterranean Society
married very early and then went to live with her husband's family, where she
honored his ancestors and performed rituals designed to prolong his life. If In contrast to classical India, gender structures in the Mediterranean, until the
such rituals were ineffective, women could expect a long period of dismal advent of Christianity, were shaped more by secular ideas and aims than by
widowhood, during which they were considered inauspicious—that is, religious systems. Ideas about gender originating in classical Athens were
unlucky—and so not welcome at family festivities or rituals. Though there is sharply hierarchical. Aristotle (384-322 B.CE.), the most influential
some disagreement about this in Hindu sacred texts, most of them teach that a philosopher in Western civilization, saw only males as capable of perfection
woman can never gain the final state of bliss, known as moksba, without and described women—and all female animals—as "deformed males." Thus
having first been reborn a man. Some Buddhist texts also regarded women as the perfect human form was that of the young male and the perfect
not capable of achieving enlightenment unless they first became men, and relationship one between two men. Athens developed an institutionalized
Buddhism placed all nuns under the control of male monks. system of pederasty, in which part of a young upper-class male's training in
cultural and political adulthood included an often sexual
/50 W
• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, iooo B.C.E.-450 C.E. • • GENDER STRUCTURES IN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS •
relationship with an older man. (Formal homosexuality between adults, ing entertainments. Within the family, law gave wives some protection
however, was condemned and open to legal punishment.) In the same way that against abuse, modifying the disciplinary inequality of the earlier republic.
Confucianism made women's subordination part of the cosmic order, But women's conditions deteriorated again in the later empire.
Aristotelian biological and political theory made it part of nature: "The male is The classical Mediterranean was home to a wide range of religious
by nature fitter for command than the female ... the inequality is permanent." beliefs and practices, and in the 1st century C.E. Christianity was added to this
This inequality was not simply a matter of theory but was also reflected in mixture. In some of its teachings on gender, Christianity was quite
Athenian life, for citizen women did not participate in education, politics, or revolutionary. The words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth were very
civic life and were generally secluded in special parts of the house. Slave favorable toward women, and a number of women are mentioned as his
women were not secluded; in fact, their work, such as buying and selling goods followers in the books of the New Testament, the key religious text for
at the public market or drawing water at neighborhood wells, made the Christians. Women took an active role in the spread of Christianity,
seclusion of citizen women possible. Women from outside Athens were preaching, acting as missionaries, and being martyred alongside men. Early
engaged in a number of occupations, the most famous of which was being a Christians expected Jesus to return to earth again very soon and so taught that
hetaera, a resident in one of the city-run brothels, in which upper-class men one should concentrate on this "second coming." Because of this, marriage
spent considerable time. These aspects of Athenian life—certain types of and normal family life should be abandoned, and Christians should depend on
homosexuality, prostitution, slavery, and the subordination of women— their new spiritual family of cobelievers—an ideal that led some women and
disturbed later scholars of the classical period such as Edith Hamilton and H. D. men to reject marriage and live a celibate life, either singly or in communities.
F. Kitto, who chose to leave them out of their discussions of the glories of This rejection of sexuality also had negative consequences for women,
Athenian democracy and philosophy. however, because most early church writers—who were male and often
In contrast to Athens, classical Rome developed a notion of the family that termed the church fathers—saw women as their primary temptation and
is in many ways close to that of China and India, in that the family, rather than developed a strong streak of misogyny. Some of these writers, most
the individual man, was considered the basis of the social order. This family prominently Augustine (354-430 C.E.), were dualists who made sharp
was patriarchal, with fathers, particularly during the republican period, holding distinctions between the spiritual and the material, the soul and the body, and
strong control over their female and male children and husbands control over identified women with the less valued material aspects of existence. Women
their wives. Both men and women married early, at roughly the same age, a were generally forbidden to preach or hold most official positions in the
marital pattern both supported by and supporting the Roman ideal that church. Thus, like Hinduism and Buddhism, Christianity offered
husbands and wives should share interests, property, and activities. Spousal contradictory and ambiguous messages about proper gender relations and the
loyalty was often used metaphorically to represent political loyalty in a way relative value of the devotion and worship of male and female adherents.
that would have seemed bizarre to Greek political theorists. During the late
republican and imperial period, upper-class men were often absent from their
Conclusion
homes on military or government duties in Rome's rapidly expanding
territories, which left women more responsible for running estates and Gender differences had been abundantly clear in river-valley civilizations,
managing businesses and property. No Roman woman was named emperor in but they intensified during the classical period, creating greater gaps between
her own right, but as the wives and mothers of emperors, they frequently men and women. This change was most evident in the upper classes, though
influenced imperial politics. Respectable women had more opportunities in it tended to put pressure on gender patterns in society more generally. Rome
public than the Greeks had tolerated, including attend- during the early empire was a partial exception to this pattern,
I$2 *S3
• THE CLASSICAL PERIOD, iooo B.C.E.-450 c.E. •
but in China, India, and Athens, the stipulations and family arrangements • CHAPTER 9 •
accompanying Confucianism, Hinduism, and Greek city-state politics tended
to define women's roles and the perceptions of women with growing rigor.
WORK AND LEISURE IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD
Why did this rigidification occur? To some extent, the creation of more
systematic cultural statements, such as Confucianism, almost unwittingly
formalized gender ideas, by pulling less systematic inequalities into more
elaborate ideological systems and tying gender structures to notions of society
and the cosmos. Many historians believe that, on the whole, growing
prosperity in agricultural civilizations created the means and facilitated the
In many important ways, the classical period defined patterns of labor sys-
motivation to treat wives more as ornaments, as a sign of the family's wealth
tems and leisure that continued to exist well after the civilizations that
and success, and also to try to isolate and control them more fully, in order to
spawned them changed or collapsed. Most obviously, the caste system in
assure male monopoly over their sexual activities and resulting offspring. This
South Asia emerged during this period, melding religion with an organization
explains the particular focus on the upper classes as centers of innovation in
of society based in large part on what type of labor each segment performed.
gender thinking. Another contributing factor may have been more formal
Perhaps less dramatic but just as important, the classical civilizations in
activities of governments, which reduced (though did not eliminate) women's
China and the Mediterranean organized work in structures that would remain
informal power roles in individual families. Certainly, as we have seen, the
characteristic in their successors. In the case of China, free peasants formed
creation of a more elaborate political sphere spurred men to try to define
the backbone of the labor force, whereas in the Mediterranean world, slavery
public life as their own, establishing a new occasion for men and women, the
and other forms of unfree work became important components of labor mix.
public and the familial, to be separate.
This chapter examines why these three civilizations created such different
Yet there were tensions about gender within each of the civilizations, and
forms of labor exploitation.
the distinctions among cultures are significant as well. Cultural change,
Leisure activities also became defined in characteristic ways during the
particularly the expansion of Buddhism in Asia and the rise of Christianity in
classical period. The festivals that emerged during this age, while they often
the Middle East and Mediterranean, both strengthened and questioned
had important antecedents, proved extremely durable. Many holidays became
existing gender structures. This simultaneous challenge and reinforcement
standardized during this age, although many changed in their meaning over
would continue in the postclassical period, when contacts between cultures
time. In contrast to the preclassical period, some festivals lost their religious
increased. identities and became secular celebrations. Elsewhere, athletics and spectator
sports emerged for the first time as important forms of leisure. Theater
developed and became an activity enjoyed by spectators in their spare time.
Indeed, while the concept of entertainer had existed previously, there were
more of them in this period than ever before.
Comparing the Organization of Work
Before analyzing and comparing different civilizations, it is important to
keep in mind certain general characteristics that continued to distinguish
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