The word democracy was born in Greece, but not democracy. In ancient Greece, there was slavery, and the woman was regarded as an object, she had no opinion and could not participated in public affairs.
Hi Beltraneja! I saw your post just now and thus I apologise for the late reply. I will go off topic, but I really need to clarify a few points. A common mistake is to judge these ancient times through a Christian prism. It is not your fault, 90% of what is written about ancient Greece and its values is filtered through a Christian angle, unfortunately. It is sad that most academicians were/are not able to approach that era sufficiently and with an open-mind. Friedrich Nietzsche was a brilliant exception and also Goethe has some great hints in his work, AFAIK.
That being said, I have to emphasize a few points here: 'Slavery' in A.G. was a complicated matter. Their status even differed from city-state to city-state, thus I'm not going to elaborate on this. I will only point out that the Greek lords did not treat their slaves badly or unfairly, they did not punish them, they did not torture them and a slave had the right to take his lord to the court if he felt that he was treated unfairly. Perhaps we shouldn't even call it 'slavery', these people were rather servants and were treated with respect in most cases. An example could be the pedagogue, a slave that held a special position, who accompanied his lord's son(s) to the school, back and forth. The pedagogue had the right to advise and even admonish the children or hit them occasionally with the pandybat he was carrying. As you can see, 'slavery' in A.G. had nothing to do with slavery in other parts of the ancient world or in medieval Europe or in the US.
Regarding the position of women, your wording alone indicates confusion. The word 'object' came up in history during the prevalence of christianity in Europe ('res' in Latin). In Athens and other cities, women were seen as the Ladies of the House. It was a cultural thing, in other words. Their priorities and business were different than those of the men, they cared about their household, their children and themselves (their appearance, for example). Women really shouldn't worry about anything else. Once again, they were NOT treated badly by their men, but with full respect as spouses and mothers of their children. They could appear in public, but accompanied by men, usually by an important slave, like the pedagogue. Propriety and modesty were the keys.
In Sparta women were free to exercise and even participate in some public affairs. Again, their status differed from city-state to city-state.
I will even dare say that, if the ancient Greek values were thoroughly understood and finally prevailed upon Europe against the Christian dogma and values, we would never reach such a sad point. One can find hundreds of historical books on these matters out there, but not all of the authors have captured the quintessence of the ancient Greek world, their notion and values.
Regarding the restoration of the monarchy in modern Greece, this is out of the question, as I had said. I will only state that I agree with the posters above, and particularly with NotHRH and Artemisia.
