Oikos
Encyclopedia
An oikos is the ancient Greek
equivalent of a household
, house
, or family
.
An oikos was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states, and included the head of the oikos (usually the oldest male), his extended family (wife and children), and slaves living together in one domestic setting. Large oikoi also had farms that were usually tended by the slaves, which were also the basic agricultural unit of the ancient economy.
The Greek oikos differed significantly from the Roman domus
in architectural layout, although Greece became part of the Roman Empire
for a long time. It was built around paved peristyle
s and had very distinct male and female spaces.
The first part of the house consisted of a "gynaeconite" (γυναικωνίτης, "women's gallery"), or peristyle (περιστύλιον), with the oikos proper, the center of domestic activity, beyond. This latter area consisted of bedrooms and dining rooms. The second part of the house, the "andronites" , was the locus of male activity. There one could find more dining rooms, guest suites, and libraries.
As depicted in Homer
's poetry, female characters of the upper classes led a relatively independent life. Although women were technically of citizen status, they had no rights of citizenship. Women had no political rights and could take no part whatsoever in government
; they had no more rights than slaves. They could conduct only limited business and hold and inherit limited property. All business was conducted on a woman's behalf by her husband or father.
Women rarely received inheritances, since the law of inheritance was through the male line. Indeed, written wills were allowed at Athens only if there was no son. At Sparta
women were able to own and inherit property. Marriage
was arranged for a woman by her father or male guardian.
In the home women were kept segregated in their own quarters, called gynaikonitis, and were virtually unseen. They were responsible for the total control of their household (oikos), including slaves, children, cooking, cleaning, caring for the sick and making clothes (from spinning wool to finishing the garments). Much would be done by female slaves under the supervision of the mistress.
Women rarely left the house, and even then would be accompanied by female slaves. Women did go shopping and to the wells to fetch water, but this was done mainly by slaves and by poorer women without slaves. Older women and widows had more freedom, as did Spartan wives. Wives in Sparta were also permitted to drink alcohol, which was forbidden in most other city-states. It should be noted, however, that, as evidenced in the literature of the time, this standard was rarely observed. Poorer women undertook work, including selling goods in the market, spinning, making bread, agricultural laboring, acting as wet nurses or working alongside their husbands. It was not possible in such households to segregate men from women. Poorer widows often had to work, if they had no means of financial support.
Within religion women did play an important role, such as a dominant role at funerals, weddings, and a large number of public festivals. There were many priestesses, and women also had their own festivals. At some festivals, though, it is believed that women were not present; nor may they have attended associated performances at theaters.
In Hellenistic times Macedonian women wielded much power, and contemporary philosophies also encouraged greater freedom for women. Many women, such as in the Ptolemaic world, wielded great political influence.
The complex relationship between father and son was also bound intrinsically to the transfer of family property: a legitimate son could expect to inherit the property of his father and, in return, was legally obligated to provide for his father in his old age. If a son failed to care for his parents he could be prosecuted and a conviction would result in the loss of his citizen rights. However, fathers could also be prosecuted by their sons for maltreatment if they prostituted them or failed to provide them with a techne. Furthermore, the heir to an inheritance would also be required to perform burial rites at the deceased's funeral and continue to provide annual commemorative rites. This would have been an extremely important consideration for the Athenians, who were notoriously pious.
took place at home, with all the women of the household in attendance. A female midwife (maia) may have been present, and a male doctor
called in if complications arose, but virtually no information on midwifery exists. Childbirth was regarded as polluting so was not allowed to take place on sacred ground. At birth the guardian (usually the father) had to decide whether to keep the child or expose it. If it was kept a purification ceremony took place on the fifth or seventh day after birth.
It was the mother's duty to breast-feed their children, but wet nurse
s were employed, and pottery feeding bottles are also known. There is evidence from vase
paintings for cradles of wickerwork or wood
. From the 4th century BC children appear much more in artistic representations. Children played a number of games, and evidence of toys comes from literature
, vase paintings and surviving examples of the actual toys.
It was customary at various festivals to give children toys. When girls were about to marry and when boys reached adolescence, it was customary for them to dedicate their playthings to deities.
Male children were favored for many reasons. They perpetuated the family
and family cult, cared for parents in old age and arranged a proper funeral
for deceased parents. In addition sons could inherit their mothers' dowry. Boys were raised in the female quarters until about the age of six, when they were educated in schools, but girls remained under the close supervision of their mothers until they married. They rarely went out of the women's section of the house and were taught domestic skills at home, though they did attend some religious festivals. In Sparta
boys were removed from their families at the age of seven to be reared by the state.
. It was usually a method of providing a man with an heir. By the 4th century BC in Athens, adoption could be inter vivos (adoptive father and adopted son both alive), or a son could be adopted after a man's death through a will, or assigned to the family after his death if none was mentioned in a will and there was no heir.
, who mentions dogs. The most popular pet was a small dog, often represented on 5th-century BC Attic gravestones.
and Lysistrata
. These fears were intensified by the nature of marriage in Ancient Greece. Marriage was arranged by the bride's father, and many men did not have a close relationship with their betrothed before the marriage.
. Several dozen to several hundred people may be known, but the quality time spent with others is extremely limited: only those to whom quality (face-to-face) time is devoted can be said to be a part of an oikos. Each individual has a primary group that includes relatives and friends who relate to the individual through work, recreation, hobbies, or our neighbors. The modern oikos, however, includes people that share some sort of social interaction, be it through conversation or simple relation, for at least a total of one hour per week.
The term oikophobia
is used to refer to fear of the home or of household appliances. It has been extended by the philosopher Roger Scruton
to mean rejection of ones home culture.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
equivalent of a household
Household
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
, house
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
, or family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
.
An oikos was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states, and included the head of the oikos (usually the oldest male), his extended family (wife and children), and slaves living together in one domestic setting. Large oikoi also had farms that were usually tended by the slaves, which were also the basic agricultural unit of the ancient economy.
The Greek oikos differed significantly from the Roman domus
Domus
In ancient Rome, the domus was the type of house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. They could be found in almost all the major cities throughout the Roman territories...
in architectural layout, although Greece became part of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
for a long time. It was built around paved peristyle
Peristyle
In Hellenistic Greek and Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building surrounding a court that may contain an internal garden. Tetrastoon is another name for this feature...
s and had very distinct male and female spaces.
The first part of the house consisted of a "gynaeconite" (γυναικωνίτης, "women's gallery"), or peristyle (περιστύλιον), with the oikos proper, the center of domestic activity, beyond. This latter area consisted of bedrooms and dining rooms. The second part of the house, the "andronites" , was the locus of male activity. There one could find more dining rooms, guest suites, and libraries.
Women
Although men were part of both the polis and oikos, women had a role only in the oikos.As depicted in Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
's poetry, female characters of the upper classes led a relatively independent life. Although women were technically of citizen status, they had no rights of citizenship. Women had no political rights and could take no part whatsoever in government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
; they had no more rights than slaves. They could conduct only limited business and hold and inherit limited property. All business was conducted on a woman's behalf by her husband or father.
Women rarely received inheritances, since the law of inheritance was through the male line. Indeed, written wills were allowed at Athens only if there was no son. At Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
women were able to own and inherit property. Marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
was arranged for a woman by her father or male guardian.
In the home women were kept segregated in their own quarters, called gynaikonitis, and were virtually unseen. They were responsible for the total control of their household (oikos), including slaves, children, cooking, cleaning, caring for the sick and making clothes (from spinning wool to finishing the garments). Much would be done by female slaves under the supervision of the mistress.
Women rarely left the house, and even then would be accompanied by female slaves. Women did go shopping and to the wells to fetch water, but this was done mainly by slaves and by poorer women without slaves. Older women and widows had more freedom, as did Spartan wives. Wives in Sparta were also permitted to drink alcohol, which was forbidden in most other city-states. It should be noted, however, that, as evidenced in the literature of the time, this standard was rarely observed. Poorer women undertook work, including selling goods in the market, spinning, making bread, agricultural laboring, acting as wet nurses or working alongside their husbands. It was not possible in such households to segregate men from women. Poorer widows often had to work, if they had no means of financial support.
Within religion women did play an important role, such as a dominant role at funerals, weddings, and a large number of public festivals. There were many priestesses, and women also had their own festivals. At some festivals, though, it is believed that women were not present; nor may they have attended associated performances at theaters.
In Hellenistic times Macedonian women wielded much power, and contemporary philosophies also encouraged greater freedom for women. Many women, such as in the Ptolemaic world, wielded great political influence.
Men
A man was the head (kyrios - κύριος "master") of the household. In this sense, he was responsible for representing the interests of his oikos to the wider polis and providing legal protection to the women and minors with whom he shared his household. Initially the kyrios of an oikos would have been the husband and father of offspring. However, when any legitimate sons reached adulthood the role of kyrios could, in many instances, be transferred from the father to the next male generation. When a son was given his portion of the inheritance, either before or after his father had died, he was said to have formed a new oikos. Therefore new oikoi were formed every generation and would continue to be perpetuated through marriage and childbirth.The complex relationship between father and son was also bound intrinsically to the transfer of family property: a legitimate son could expect to inherit the property of his father and, in return, was legally obligated to provide for his father in his old age. If a son failed to care for his parents he could be prosecuted and a conviction would result in the loss of his citizen rights. However, fathers could also be prosecuted by their sons for maltreatment if they prostituted them or failed to provide them with a techne. Furthermore, the heir to an inheritance would also be required to perform burial rites at the deceased's funeral and continue to provide annual commemorative rites. This would have been an extremely important consideration for the Athenians, who were notoriously pious.
Children
ChildbirthChildbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
took place at home, with all the women of the household in attendance. A female midwife (maia) may have been present, and a male doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
called in if complications arose, but virtually no information on midwifery exists. Childbirth was regarded as polluting so was not allowed to take place on sacred ground. At birth the guardian (usually the father) had to decide whether to keep the child or expose it. If it was kept a purification ceremony took place on the fifth or seventh day after birth.
It was the mother's duty to breast-feed their children, but wet nurse
Wet nurse
A wet nurse is a woman who is used to breast feed and care for another's child. Wet nurses are used when the mother is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cultures the families are linked by a special relationship of...
s were employed, and pottery feeding bottles are also known. There is evidence from vase
Vase
The vase is an open container, often used to hold cut flowers. It can be made from a number of materials including ceramics and glass. The vase is often decorated and thus used to extend the beauty of its contents....
paintings for cradles of wickerwork or wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
. From the 4th century BC children appear much more in artistic representations. Children played a number of games, and evidence of toys comes from literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, vase paintings and surviving examples of the actual toys.
It was customary at various festivals to give children toys. When girls were about to marry and when boys reached adolescence, it was customary for them to dedicate their playthings to deities.
Male children were favored for many reasons. They perpetuated the family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
and family cult, cared for parents in old age and arranged a proper funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
for deceased parents. In addition sons could inherit their mothers' dowry. Boys were raised in the female quarters until about the age of six, when they were educated in schools, but girls remained under the close supervision of their mothers until they married. They rarely went out of the women's section of the house and were taught domestic skills at home, though they did attend some religious festivals. In Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
boys were removed from their families at the age of seven to be reared by the state.
Adoption
In order to continue the family it was possible for a man to adopt a son, although the adopted son did not have as many rights of inheritance as a son by birthBirth
Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring. The offspring is brought forth from the mother. The time of human birth is defined as the time at which the fetus comes out of the mother's womb into the world...
. It was usually a method of providing a man with an heir. By the 4th century BC in Athens, adoption could be inter vivos (adoptive father and adopted son both alive), or a son could be adopted after a man's death through a will, or assigned to the family after his death if none was mentioned in a will and there was no heir.
Pets
Some animals were kept in the home from at least the time of HomerHomer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, who mentions dogs. The most popular pet was a small dog, often represented on 5th-century BC Attic gravestones.
Adultery
There were a number of reasons for which men often carefully guarded the faithfulness of their wives. Illegitimate children were deprived of many rights in most Greek city-states; should a man's heirs legitimacy be questioned on grounds of his mother's chastity, his family could end. Illegitimate children could also be a considerable economic drain on their family, while giving little back. Another cause of fear was the threat of an outsider gaining access to the oikos, either through the woman he was sleeping with, or their child. Presumably, the fear of adultery is linked to the ban on women's consumption of alcohol, as evidenced in such plays as Aristophenes' ThesmophoriazusaeThesmophoriazusae
Thesmophoriazusae is one of eleven surviving plays by the master of Old Comedy, the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. It was first produced in 411 BC, probably at the City Dionysia...
and Lysistrata
Lysistrata
Lysistrata is one of eleven surviving plays written by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War...
. These fears were intensified by the nature of marriage in Ancient Greece. Marriage was arranged by the bride's father, and many men did not have a close relationship with their betrothed before the marriage.
In modern sociology
The term oikos is contemporarily used to describe social groupsGroup (sociology)
In the social sciences a social group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity...
. Several dozen to several hundred people may be known, but the quality time spent with others is extremely limited: only those to whom quality (face-to-face) time is devoted can be said to be a part of an oikos. Each individual has a primary group that includes relatives and friends who relate to the individual through work, recreation, hobbies, or our neighbors. The modern oikos, however, includes people that share some sort of social interaction, be it through conversation or simple relation, for at least a total of one hour per week.
The term oikophobia
Oikophobia
Oikophobia, also ecophobia, is a term used in psychiatry to refer to an aversion to home surroundings. It can also be used more generally to mean an abnormal fear of the home, or of the contents of a house...
is used to refer to fear of the home or of household appliances. It has been extended by the philosopher Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
Roger Vernon Scruton is a conservative English philosopher and writer. He is the author of over 30 books, including Art and Imagination , Sexual Desire , The Aesthetics of Music , and A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism...
to mean rejection of ones home culture.
See Also
- Aristotle's views on womenAristotle's views on womenAristotle's views on women influenced later Western thinkers, who quoted him as an authority until the end of the Middle Ages, and are thus an important topic in women's history.-Women held to be colder than men:...
- Slavery in ancient GreeceSlavery in Ancient GreeceSlavery was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece throughout its rich history, as it was in other societies of the time including ancient Israel and early Christian societies. It is estimated that in Athens, the majority of citizens owned at least one slave...
- Women in Classical AthensWomen in Classical AthensWomen in Classical Athens were seen inferior to the men of Athens. The differences between women and men were not the only differences though. It also depended on whether you were a slave, a prostitute, or a housewife...
Further reading
- Cox, Cheryl Anne (1998) — Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in ancient Athens — Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01572-4.
- Robinson, Eric (2004) — Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources — Blackwell publishing. ISBN 0-631-23394-6.