Spartan Gamos in The Classical Period

SPARTAN GAMOS IN THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
«SPARTAN GAMOS IN THE CLASSICAL PERIOD»
by Ryszard Kulesza
Source:
Palamedes: A Journal of Ancient History (Palamedes: A Journal of Ancient History), issue: 3 / 2008,
pages: 135166, on www.ceeol.com.
Ryszard Kulesza
S PARTAN GAMOS IN THE CLASSICAL

PERIOD*
‘N ous ne savons pas si l’union matrimoniale à Sparte s’accomplissait

comme à Athènes, par une šgg?hsiV suivi de l’žkdosiV de la jeune mariée’.1 This
question, posed by Karabelias almost thirty years ago, in today’s orthodox view
has seemingly been resolved. Hodkinson, for instance, in his excellent synthesis,
writes as follows: ‘In the classical period, in contrast [to the archaic period – R.K.],
the wedding ceremony was a mute affair, involving a secretive ritual seizure
following a privately arranged betrothal’.2 This view is now almost universally
accepted; yet, as Cynthia Patterson observes, ‘Plutarch’s often-cited account of the
clandestine abduction of the transvestite bride, however, is not supported by
classical authors, who seem to imply the existence of ordinary marriage arran-
gements, at least among those elite households of which we have record’.3 The
question, then, whether in Sparta there existed ‘ordinary marriage arrangements’
or, on the contrary, ‘secretive ritual seizures followed a privately arranged betrothal’,
seems to be still open. The following article is an attempt to bring together source
evidence which sheds light on the marriage procedures in the Sparta of the
Classical Period.4 The article also stresses the crucial difference, still not clarified
* I want to express my gratitude to my readers: Włodzimierz Lengauer, Andreas Luther, Misha

Meier, Jacek Rzepka, Marek Węcowski and Aleksander Wolicki for their valuable observations
and their kind support. I would like to thank the participants of my seminar, who enthusiastically
shared my passion for Sparta. I am also grateful to the State Committee for Scientific Research
(KBN) for their support of my research project on Sparta in the classical period.
1
E. Karabelias, ‘L’épiclerat à Sparte’, in Studi in onore di Arnaldo Biscardi, vol. II, Milano 1982, 475.
2
S. Hodkinson, Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, London 2000, 230.
3
C.B. Patterson, The Family in Greek History, Cambridge Mass., London 1998, 77.
4
In this text, I do not attempt to argue against the views of Winfried Schmitz, who, beginning
from different premises (which, in my opinion, are not entirely convincing) – premises
supporting the more traditional vision of Sparta as the correct one – created his own,
PALAMEDES 3(2008) 135

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Ryszard Kulesza
enough in the relevant literature,5 between the formal matrimony and the state of
affairs which could be described as a ‘situation matrimoniale’.
The betrothal and the seizure
Dik|zein d] mo?nouV to/V basil}aV tos|de moŢna· patro?cou te parq}nou p}ri,

šV t'n Äkn}etai žcein, łn mŞ per Ô pat«r aŮt«n šgguŞs¯ (Hdt. VI 57,4)
The kings alone pronounce judgment exclusively in the following matters: whom
a maiden is to wed who inherits the property of her father, if her father has not
betrothed her earlier.
This text raises more questions than it answers. The premature death of an
heiress’ father seems to be the natural reason why she would not have been
betrothed by him personally; it can be guessed that the girl was too young to be
betrothed. It is known that Spartan women married upon reaching physical
maturity. It is not known, however, at what age they were betrothed, whether
any kind of terminus a quo existed and what period of time would separate engye
6
from the ekdosis. The fact that at the time of her father’s death the girl might have
been not betrothed yet only suggests that engye was not (or at least not always,
as it appears from Herodotus’ account) conducted very early, but rather closer to
the period when the girl was reaching maturity.
Moreover, Herodotus’ remark does not concern all girls; the term patrouchos
refers to those girls who in the absence of brothers inherited their father’s entire
estate. The question is whether in cases concerning a heiress the king had freedom
of decision. Was it a particular prerogative of the king to dispose of the heiress’
hand? Or perhaps, as the community’s man of trust, he intervened only in the cases
of a potential, or more probably of an already existing, conflict?7 The word dikazein
clearly points to the fact that he did not make the choice himself, but rather
pronounced judgment if there was a quarrel between the candidates to the heiress’
undoubtedly interesting model of a Spartan marriage. According to him, in the seventh century
BC Spartan marriage still resembled marriages in other Greek poleis (‘patrilokale Ehe’); in the
sixth century, in connection with the creation of common property (kleroi) in Messenia, it
assumed a specifically Spartan form (‘Modell einer avuncolinearen Erbfolge’) but had returned
to the earlier customs already by the fifth century (W. Schmitz, ‘Die geschorene Braut.
Kommunitare Lebensformen in Sparta?’, HZ 274 (2002), 561–602, esp. 590–595; idem, Haus und
Familie im antiken Griechenland, München 2007).
5
See e.g. S.B. Pomeroy, Spartan Women, Oxford 2002, 39.
6
For Athens, see e.g. J.H. Oakley, R.H. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens, Madison 1993, 10;
A.M. Verilhac, Cl. Vial, Le marriage grec du Vie siècle à l’époque d’Auguste, Paris 1998.
7
See R. Kulesza, Sparta, Warsaw 2003, 83.
136 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

Spartan Gamos in the Classical Period
hand. Additionally, the verb hikneetai suggests that the king’s decision was not
arbitrary,8 and that the potential husband had some right to the heiress’ hand.
Most probably, as everywhere else in Greece, the right to marry off a girl belonged
to her nearest male relative.9
The king’s prerogatives concerning a patrouchos are not mentioned by
Aristotle, who says: ‘As things are now, an epikleros can be given in marriage to
anyone; and if a husband dies intestate, the man whom he leaves as the
kleronomos gives her in marriage to whomever he wishes’ (Arist. Pol. 1270a, 26–9).
The radical conclusion which can be drawn from the above is that Aristotle is
seriously wrong, as the term epikleros in the Spartan context is technically
incorrect, and worse still he is also wrong regarding the heart of the matter:
Athenian women could not inherit property, while Spartan women could.10
According to Sealey, ‘The silence of Aristotle is no argument against royal
jurisdiction over a heiress in his time, and the silence of Herodotus is no argument
against the existence in his time of the freedom attested by Aristotle for giving
heiresses in marriage’.11
This passage only seemingly attests to the change which took place between
the times of Herodotus and those of Aristotle. Aristotle uses the Athenian term
epikleros and mentions the kleronomos (probably the nearest male relative), a word
which often means ‘the heir’. The term kleronomos may mean ‘the owner of the
kleros’, the man to whom the kleros was assigned (with nomos from nemein). Other,
less probable interpretations are also proposed: (1) the one who manages the kleros
(with nomos from nemesthai), (2) the man who looks after the kleros (in the same
way the paidonomos looks after the children). In any case, according to Hodkinson
it is the heiress who owns the land, not the kleronomos.12 Indeed, Herodotus’
patrouchos could be identical with Aristotle’s epikleros.13 The difference between
Herodotus and Aristotle is only superficial, resulting from the difference of their
points of view.14
The final conclusion is that in ordinary circumstances the patrouchos was
given in marriage by her father (Herodotus) or her nearest male relative (Aristotle).
It could be assumed that in Sparta, like in the other Greek poleis, marriage was an
8
Karabelias, ‘L’épiclerat à Sparte’, 474, n. 211.
9
Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 95; Karabelias, ‘L’épiclerat à Sparte’, 473; Patterson, The Family
in Greek History, 101.
10
P.A. Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives: “Liberation or Licence?”’, CQ 31 (1981), 97–98. Cf. L.J. Piper,
‘Wealthy Spartan Women’, CB 56 (1979), 6.
11
R. Sealey, Women and Law in Classical Greece, Chapell Hill, London 1990, 86.
12
Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 95.
13
Sealey, Women and Law, 85.
14
Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 95–96.

Ryszard Kulesza
issue of an individual agreement ‘entre le père de la jeune fille et celui qui allait
devenir son gendre’.15 It turns out, however, that a different manner of arranging
a marriage was also possible:
@O d] Leutuc{dhV ń šcqr'V tř DhmarŞt2 m|lista gegonęV di\ pr®gma toi"nde.
@Armosam}nou Leutuc{dew P}rkalon t«n C{lwnoV toŢ Dhmarm}nou qugat}ra
Ô Dhm|rhtoV špiboule?saV ‡poster}ei Leutuc{dhn toŢ g|mou, jq|saV aŮt'V t«n
P}rkalon ˆrp|saV ka[ scęn gunaČka (Hdt. VI 65,2).
Leotykhidas had become a bitter enemy of Demaratos because of the following
incident. After Leotykhidas had engaged to himself Perkalos, the daughter of Khilon
son of Demarmenos, Demaratos deprived Leotykhidas of the marriage by a plot: he
got in first himself, seized Perkalos, and had her as his wife (tr. D.M. MacDowell).
Perkalos was betrothed to Leotykhidas, as expressed by the term harmozein,
which is probably the Spartan equivalent of engyan.16 Demaratos prevented the
marriage rite (gamos) from taking place, as he seized (harpazein) Perkalos, who as
a result of that became his wife. The case of Demaratos demonstrates that the
harpage was not – or at least did not have to be – preceded by the engye. It also
demonstrates that the engye was not equivalent to the marriage ceremony. What
is more, it appears that, although as a result of the seizure Demaratos did make
Perkalos his wife (schon gynaika), it was an unusual measure, and not necessarily
in the sense that he beat Leotykhidas to her and deprived him of his chance to
‘seize’ the girl. The next step after the engye was indispensable – the woman had
to enter her new home. According to many scholars, this was done in the process
of a ‘seizure’; this, although possible, does not emerge from any of the above texts.
Herodotus says only that Demaratos ‘deprived’ his rival ‘of the marriage’ (aposterei
tou gamou).
It should also be pointed out here that if not for Herodotus’ chance remark,
nothing would be known of the engye, since those ancient authors who do speak
of the various aspects of Spartan marriage do not mention it at all.
The procedure of the seizure is described in detail by Plutarch:
#Eg|moun d] di’ ˆrpag®V, oŮ mikr\V oŮd] ‡érouV pr'V g|mon, ‡ll\ ka[ ‡kma-
zo?saV ka[ pepe{rouV. t«n d] ˆrpasqeČsan - numje?tria kaloum}nh
paralaboŢsa, t«n m]n kejal«n šn crř peri}keiren, Ämat{2 d] ‡ndre{2 ka[
ÚpodŞmasin šnskeu|sasa kat}klinen šp[ stib|da m"nhn neu jwt"V. Ô d]
numj{oV oŮ meq?wn oŮd] qrupt"menoV, ‡ll\ nŞjwn, îsper ‡e{, dedeipnhkęV šn
15
J. Modrzejewski, ‘La structure juridique du marriage grec’, in E. Bresciani, G. Geraci, S. Pernigotti,
G. Susini (eds), Scritti in onore di Orsolina Montevecchi, Bolonia 1981, 235; Cartledge, ‘Spartan
Wives’, 99–100; D.M. MacDowell, Spartan Law, Edinburgh 1986, 77–82; J. Ducat, ‘La femme
de Sparte et la cité’, Ktéma 23 (1998), 396; Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 407.
16
E. Bickerman, ‘La conception du marriage à Athènes’, BIDR 17 (1975), 10–11.

toČV jidit{oiV, pareiselqęn žlue t«n zénhn ka[ metŞnegken ‡r|menoV šp[ t«n
kl{nhn. sundiatr{yaV d] cr"non oŮ pol/n ‡p¸ei kosm{wV oäper eĂéqei t' pr"teron,
kaqeudŞswn met\ tín llwn n}wn. ka[ t' loip'n oßtwV žpratte, toČV m]n
-likiétaiV sundihmere?wn ka[ sunanapau"menoV, pr'V d] t«n n?mjhn kr?ja
met’ eŮlabe{aV joitín, aĂscun"menoV ka[ dedoikęV mŞ tiV aËsqoito tín žndon,
‰ma ka[ t®V n?mjhV špitecnwm}nhV ka[ suneuporo?shV ŐpwV Śn šn kairř ka[
lanq|nonteV ‡llŞloiV sumpore?ointo. ka[ toŢto žpratton oŮk Ól{gon cr"non ,
‡ll’ îste ka[ paČdaV gen}sqai šn{oiV pr[n šV -m}ran qe|sasqai t\V ›autín
gunaČkaV (Plut. Lyk. 15,4–9).
They used to marry by seizure – not little girls or ones unripe for marriage, but in
their prime and mature. When a woman was seized, the so-called bridesmaid received
her, and she shaved her head, dressed her in a man’s cloak and shoes, and laid her on
a pallet alone without a light. The bridegroom, not intoxicated or enervated, but
sober, after dining in his mess as usual, slipped in to her, loosed her girdle, and lifted
her and carried her to the bed. After spending a short time with her, he went away in
an orderly manner to sleep in his usual quarters, with the other young men; and so he
went on, passing his days and his rest with men of his own age, and visiting his bride
secretly and cautiously, being ashamed and afraid that someone in the house might
see him. The bride too helped to contrive opportunities for them to come together
unobserved. They went on like this for a considerable time, so that some men even
had children before they saw their own wives in daylight (tr. D.M. MacDowell).
This ‘marriage by capture’ described by Plutarch is most often considered to
have had a symbolic meaning; it is viewed as some sort of a rite de passage.17 In her
striking analysis, Annalisa Paradiso has distinguished within it what she calls the
‘riti di separazione’, ‘riti di margine’ and ‘riti di aggregazione’.18
On the basis of Plutarch’s simple account, it can be assumed that the
bachelor would take the captured young woman to his house19 and place her under
20
the care of a nympheutria (bridesmaid), who then dealt with preparations
17
See, among others, Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 100; Ducat, ‘La femme de Sparte’, 396;
D. Ogden, Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods, Oxford 1996, 225–226;
S. Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, London 1995, 153. On various interpretations of Plutarch’s
seizure, see Schmitz, ‘Die geschorene Braut’, 565–566; idem, Haus und Familie, 128–129.
18
A. Paradiso, ‘Osservazioni sulla cerimonia nuziale Spartana’, QS 24 (1986), 137–153.
19
It seems hardly probable that a girl would be ‘seized’ into her own house, although this is what
Pomeroy, among others, appears to suggest: ‘Finally, in the early stages of marriage, the bride
remained in her own home. Only a rite of transvestism in which the bride’s hair was cut and
she was dressed in man’s clothing marked her passage to her new status. The fact that Spartan
woman suffered a minimum amount of dislocation in marriage and also married men who were
unlikely to have been dominating or intimidating must have contributed to their celebrated
self-confidence’ (S.B. Pomeroy, ‘Greek Marriage’, in M. Grant, R. Kitzinger (eds), Civilization of
the Ancient Mediterranean. Greece and Rome, vol. II, New York 1988, 1336).
20
Presence of the nympheutria leads Schmitz to the conclusion that the whole affair was planned
and there was no need to worry about the possible reaction of the bride’s father (Schmitz, ‘Die
geschorene Braut’, 569–570).

Ryszard Kulesza
necessary for the consummation of the marriage. The first of those was cutting
the girls’ hair; the haircut signalised the definitive transition from virginity to
womanhood.21 Short hair constituted an important sign to the community: from
then on everyone knew that the young woman had changed her status.22
A general apotropaic meaning is usually ascribed to the stage of the
proceedings following the haircut, which was the change into male clothing.23
Following Devereux,24 some scholars maintain that additionally this ritual
transvestism was to facilitate the initiation of the young Spartan into heterosexuali-
ty.25 Schmitz considers the seizure to be an imitation of a pederastic relationship.26
Sexual contacts, which from the very first were clandestine, were to result
in the birth of children. In connection with this, some scholars speculate on the
existence in Sparta of the ‘Ehe auf Probe’, suggesting that Spartans practised the
‘trial marriage’, which would not became official until the wife became pregnant
or even until she gave birth.27 According to Pomeroy, such a form of trial marriage
‘would allow separation without dishonor if the couple proved infertile’.28
On the basis of the available material, however, it is impossible to assume
the harpage to be equivalent to a trial marriage. It has to be added that according
21
E. David, ‘Sparta’s social hair’, Eranos 90 (1992), 11–12, 17, 141); ‘the bride’s hair’ – (possibly)
‘the seat of the personality’ (cf. W. den Boer, Laconian Studies, Amsterdam 1954, 228); ‘Die
Haarrasur markiert den Übergang vom Status des Mädchens zu demjenigen der Frau’
(L. Thommen, ‘Spartanische Frauen’, MH 56 [1999], 140).
22
‘The transition of the girl/virgin to the woman/wife is manifest to all’ (M. Lipka, Xenophon’s
Spartan Constitution: Introduction, Text, Commentary, Berlin, New York 2002, 254).
23
Thommen, ‘Spartanische Frauen’, 140.
24
G. Devereux, ‘Greek Pseudo-Homosexuality and the “Greek Miracle” ’, SO 42 (1968), 84.
25
Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 101; David, ‘Sparta’s social hair’, 17; Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 43.
Transvestism was to facilitate ‘the transition into marriage for the male, while stigmatizing
that institution for the traumatized’ (B. Zweig, ‘The Only Women Who Give Birth to Men:
A Gynocentric, Cross-Cultural View of Women in Ancient Sparta’, in M. DeForest [ed.],
Woman’s Power, Man’s Game. Essays on Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy K. King, Wauconda
1993, 47).
26
Schmitz, ‘Die geschorene Braut’, 571–572; idem, Haus und Familie, 49, 128–129.
27
Similar solutions are found among various primitive societies, e.g. among the Casinahua Indians
in Brazil marriage is a casual affair: ‘When a teenage girl becomes eager to marry and gets her
father’s permission, she asks her husband-to-be to visit her in her hammock after the family is
asleep. He must be gone by daybreak. Gradually he moves his possessions into the family home.
But the marriage is not taken seriously until the girl becomes pregnant or the liaison has lasted
at least a year’ (H.E. Fisher, Anatomy of Love. The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and
Divorce, New York 1992, 65). On the ‘Ehe auf Probe’ in Sparta: Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 102,
S. Link, Der Kosmos Sparta: Recht und Sitte in klassischen Zeit, Darmstadt 1994, 115, n. 73;
Thommen, ‘Spartanische Frauen’, 141; M. Willing, ‘Zwischen Oikos und Kosmos: Frauen im
antiken Sparta’, Alterum 39 (1994), 257–258.
28
S.B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity, New York
1975, 38.

to Plutarch only sexual intercourse was conducted clandestinely, and not that the
entire marriage (of which the bride’s short hair was, after all, a very visible sign)
was kept secret.29 Various questions and doubts have been expressed on the topic
of the harpage. According to some, ‘Plutarch’s image of Spartan marriage is
inherently contradictory and unhistorical’.30 Cynthia Patterson stresses that
Plutarch’s account is not supported by classical authors.31 The story of the harpage
has also been interpreted as motivated by his desire to contrast Sparta and Athens.32
Even among those who are willing to accept the historicity of Plutarch’s
account of Spartan marriage many doubt the applicability of the entire description,
or parts of it, to the classical period. For instance, Sarah Pomeroy maintains that
the ‘bizarre customs’ described by Plutarch, such as the haircut or the ‘secret
marriage’, could not have been adopted concurrently, but developed over a long
period of time and were introduced only after the Second Messenian War or even
later. She also considers it probable that those customs ‘were revived or invented
in the Hellenistic period in connection with the reforms of Agis IV and Cleomenes
III or under the influence of some other utopian philosophical program’.33 Similarly,
Modrzejewski is ready to view Plutarch’s ‘seizure’ as ‘innovation volontairement
archaïsante qui se situerait dans la suite des réformes du IIIe siècle avant notre ère’.34
The majority of scholars are, however, convinced that in Sparta of the
classical period the harpage was the normal manner of entering the marriage union.
Certainly the passage of Herodotus already quoted can be referred to here, with its
echo of the harpage in the word harpasas. Supporters of the historicity of the
harpage defend the credibility of Plutarch’s account on one hand, while on the
other they find various ways of rationalising the harpage. Firstly, they see
Xenophon’s report of a certain secretiveness surrounding sexual contacts between
spouses as a corroboration of Plutarch’s credibility. According to this view, the
story of the harpage would not be an adaptation and development of Xenophon’s
text, since ‘Plutarch’s data go back directly, to an older source’.35 Secondly, they
resort to indirect arguments; for instance Lipka maintains that ‘marriage by
capture’ is confirmed (indirectly) by the statement that theft – and as such the
29
Lipka, Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, 254.
30
Patterson, Family in Greek History, 77; C. Mossé, ‘Women in the Spartan Revolutions of the
Third Century B.C.’, in S.B. Pomeroy (ed.), Women’s History and Ancient History, Chapell Hill,
London 1991, 138–153.
31
Patterson, Family in Greek History, 77.
32
E. Fantham, H.P. Foley, N.B. Kampea, S.B. Pomeroy, H.A. Shapiro, Women in the Classical
Sparta, Oxford 1994, 62–63.
33
Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 42.
34
Modrzejewski, ‘La structure juridique’, 235–236.
35
den Boer, Laconian Studies, 227–228.

Ryszard Kulesza
‘marriage by capture’ can be interpreted – was not necessarily as evil in Sparta,

secondly by the claim that no dowry had existed in Sparta in former times; this is
a direct consequence of the ‘marriage by capture’. When the importance of the
dowry increased in the classical period, previous arrangements between the father
of the bride and the bridegroom become unavoidable’.36
The above statement leads towards a kind of ‘rationalisation’ of the harpage,
the essence of which is that the ‘symbolic marriage by capture’ followed after ‘a
betrothal arranged by the bride’s parents or next of kin’;37 this, as has already been
said, is today the prevalent and commonly accepted assumption.38
It seems, therefore, that the whole procedure should be envisaged in the
following way: first, the bride’s father struck an agreement with the young man,
and ‘in such a case they probably agreed that the bridegroom would take the bride
from her father’s house on a certain night, and the ‘seizure’ was a conventional
formality’.39 It is, however, easy to observe that since the only known example of
the harpage was ‘for real’, at least in some cases (if not all) the father’s wishes
might have been ignored and the seizure was not feigned.40
36
37
‘Although matrimonial rites may have included a symbolic marriage by capture (…) marriages
were typically preceded by a betrothal arranged by the bride’s parents or next-of-kin’
(Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 98 and 407, idem, ‘Inheritance, Marriage and Demography:
Perspectives upon the Success and Decline of Classical Sparta’, in A. Powell (ed.), Classical
Sparta: Techniques behind her Success, London 1989, 91); ‘Es wird hingegen deutlich, dass bei der
Eheschliessung kein willkurlicher Raub stattfand, sondern eine vorherige Absprache getroffen
wurde. Die Vergabe von Jungfrauen erfolgte also durch den Vater’ (Thommen, ‘Spartanische
Frauen’, 141); ‘In Sparta the “marriage by capture” was customary. The bridegroom seized the
bride, normally after having assured himself of the consent of the bride’s father’ (Lipka,
Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, 109–9). ‘The “capture” of the bride was a ritual enactment of
a prearranged betrothal’ (Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 42). Similarly Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’,
99–100; MacDowell, Spartan Law, 77–82; Ducat, ‘La femme de Sparte’, 396; Blundell, Women in
Ancient Greece, 153; den Boer, Laconian Studies, 215; E. Millender, ‘Athenian Ideology and the
empowered Spartan Woman’, in S. Hodkinson, A. Powell (eds), Sparta. New Perspectives, London
1999, 364.
38
A separate view was formulated by Winfried Schmitz, according to whom the harpage helped
to avoid elements of the marriage procedure which were ordinary in Greece (‘Durch den Raub
wurden das Einverstandnis des Brautvaters (engye) und die Übergabe der Braut beim Hochzeitung
(ekdosis) umgangen’ [Schmitz, Haus und Familie, 49; idem, ‘Die geschorene Braut’, 572]). And
that is supposed to have been the aim of the seizure – ‘um eine rechtliche Bindung zwischen
Hausvater und Sohn zu durchtrennen’ (Schmitz, Haus und Familie, 49; idem, ‘Die geschorene
Braut’, 573). In effect, in Schmitz’s opinion, in Sparta there is no ‘eine rechtmaßige Ehe’ at all
(Schmitz, ‘Die geschorene Braut’, 574–577, 584–585).
39
MacDowell, Spartan Law, 80–81.
40
MacDowell, Spartan Law, 80–81; ‘A characteristic marriage custom was abduction, which
though usually a formality could at times be genuine’ (P. Oliva, Sparta and her Social Problems,
Amsterdam, Prague 1971, 31).

Historical analogies do not corroborate the communis opinio of the scholars

insofar as that, in all accounts in which the seizure is confirmed, it was not at all
the dominant form of a matrimonial rite. Also, in not a single case was it
preceded by a betrothal, but rather resulted from the inability of the involved
parties to strike an agreement.41 Seizure as a form of a matrimonial rite is
confirmed in the pre-Christian cultures of the Pomeranians, Lithuanians and
Ruthenians; according to some scholars it was also present in pagan Poland.42 But
even if ‘in the pagan times seizure existed as an independent rite of matrimony,
by the early Middle Ages it had already transformed into a means for arranging
a marriage’.43 In the following centuries seizure itself still existed in Poland, but
precisely as means to an end. It was most often practised by men who were
either not affluent or wanted to marry a woman of a higher social standing than
their own.44
In the Caucasus region, similar practices were commonly used well into the
20th century, and there is ample evidence of them even today. From 1999 until the
end of 2007 over 700 cases of men capturing women in order to marry them were
recorded in Dagestan. In Ingushetia, seizure reportedly precedes nearly half of the
marriages, and the perpetrators are young men unable to pay calym, the traditional
ransom, to the girl’s family. In any case, also there the ‘seizure’ does not equal the
marriage rite, but only opens the way to it.
To assume that Sparta had no matrimonial rites except the harpage thus
runs contrary to historical analogies (and indeed contrary to reason) and relies on
the basis of testis unus – which Plutarch is with regard to this topic. At the same
time, on the basis of the above-quoted sources, it is assumed that in Sparta the
betrothal (engye) usually preceded the actual marriage. The marriage rite is viewed
as ‘un acte essentiellement privé, une alliance entre deux oikoi contractée par deux
kyrioi’.45 With regard to that, at least, the process of forming a Spartan marriage
41
In this sense the seizure as an alternative form of marriage procedure may have had the role of
‘Ventilfunktion’ – see Schmitz, ‘Die geschorene Braut’, 567–568.
42
See M. Koczerska, ‘Zawarcie małżeństwa wśród szlachty w Polsce późnego średniowiecza’
[Marriage procedure among the nobility in Poland in the later Middle Ages], Przegląd Historyczny
66 (1975), 7.
43
M. Koczerska, Rodzina szlachecka w Polsce późnego średniowiecza [The family among the nobility
in Poland of the later Middle Ages], Warszawa 1975, 33.
44
E. Bezubik, ‘Rapt w okresie staropolskim’ [Seizure in the period of the Old Poland], Studia
Podlaskie 9 (1999), 65–72.
45
Ducat, ‘La femme de Sparte’, 396. Arguing for the existence of kyrieia in Sparta are, among
others, P.D. Dimakis, ‘La posizione inferiore delle donne nella Sparta classica’, G. Nenci, G. Thür
(eds), Symposion 1988. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Siena-Pisa,
6.–8. Juni 1988), Koln-Wien 1990, 204; Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 100, 103, n. 117; Hodkinson,
Property and Wealth, 407. Arguing against: Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 250. See also Schmitz, Haus
und Familie, 133.

Ryszard Kulesza
would seem similar to that de rigueur in other Greek cities. And in those latter, the
ritual led from the engye, the agreement struck by the girl’s father or legal guardian
with the young man, to the gamos, which ‘usually marked the actual transfer of
the woman from her old to her new oikos and the consummation of the marriage
(synoikein)’.46 From the material point of view, the transfer of the woman, her
handing over (ekdosis), formed the crucial point of the ceremony.47
Whatever the controversies, it can be assumed that in Sparta, just as
everywhere else in Greece, the actual point was that one man was handing over
the woman subordinate to him to another man in order for her to become the
wedded wife of the latter:
Leutuc{dhV d] Ô Men|reoV DhmarŞtou katapausq}ntoV died}xato t«n basilh{hn·
ka{ oÄ g{netai paČV Zeux{dhmoV, t'n d« Kun{skon metex}teroi Spartiht}wn šk|leon.
OätoV Ô Zeux{dhmoV oŮk šbas{leuse Sp|rthV· pr' Leutuc{dew g\r teleut“, lipęn
paČda #Arc{dhmon. Leutuc{dhV d] sterhqe[V ZeuxidŞmou gam}ei deut}rhn gunaČka
EŮrud|mhn, šoŢsan Men{ou m]n ‡deljeŞn, Diektor{dew d] qugat}ra, šk t®V oÄ
žrsen m]n g{netai oŮd}n, qug|thr d] Lampité, t«n #Arc{dhmoV Ô ZeuxidŞmou
gam}ei d"ntoV aŮtř Leutuc{dew (Hdt. VI 71,2).
Demaratus being deposed, Leutychides son of Menares succeeded to his kingship;
and there was born to him a son, Zeuxidemus, called by some of the Spartans
Cyniscus. This Zeuxidemus never came to be king of Sparta; for he died in
Leutychides’ lifetime, leaving a son, Archidemus. Having thus lost Zeuxidemus,
Leutychides married a second wife, Eurydame, sister of Menius and daughter of
Diactorides; by her he had no male issue, but a daughter, Lampito, to whom
Archidemus son of Zeuxidemus was married by Leutychides (tr. A.D. Godley).
ka[ t\V m]n proshko?saV k"raV oËkoi qrept}on, ka[ ta?taiV t®V ‡nandr{aV
aĂt{an Újekt}on, gunaik'V d] ken«n ›st{an [oŮ] periopt}on ka[ ‰ma to?tou
zhm{an ‡poteist}on (…) (Xen. Lak. Pol. 9,5).
and he [sc. the coward] must support his spinster relatives at home and must
explain to them why they are old maids: he must make the best of a fireside
without a wife, and yet pay forfeit for that (tr. E.C. Marchant).
oŮ g\r m"non ‡rc®V ‡pe{rgontai p|shV, ‡ll\ ka[ doŢna{ tini to?twn gunaČka ka[
labeČn dox"n šsti (Plut. Ages. 30,3).
Not only are [sc. tresantes] disqualified from holding any office, but it is also
a disgrace for a woman to be given to one in marriage or for a man to pick one of
their female relatives as a bride (tr. I. Scott-Kilvert, revised by R. Talbert).
46
See N. Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece, Baltimore, London 1994, 13–15;
C. Patterson, ‘Marriage and the Married Woman in Athenian Law’, in S.B. Pomeroy (ed.),
Women’s History and Ancient History, Chapell Hill-London 1991, 53–60; Oakley, Sinos, The
Wedding in Ancient Athens, 9.
47
Patterson, ‘Marriage in Athenian Law’, 49; Modrzejewski, ‘La structure juridique’, 240, 258.

The ‘giving away’48 and the ‘taking’49 of a woman to wife are the two basic
elements of the process of matrimony. The formal actions, which spring from the
agreement struck earlier, result in a man having a wife (schon gynaika Hdt. VI 65;
echonti gynaika, echeis gynaika Hdt. V 41; echein ten gynaika Polyb. XII 6b,8; nean
gynaika Xen. Lak. Pol. 1, 7). However, the question remains how the ‘transfer’ of
the woman was conducted, assuming the existence of other scenarios than the
harpage. Hodkinson maintains that the gamos was basically ‘a mute affair’. In his
opinion, ‘Spartiate weddings gave no room for the public display of wealth’.50 I do
not think, however, that Moses Finley is right in believing in what he described as
‘the singularly joyless marriage ceremony with its rare transvestite ritual’.51 It is
enough to consider the marriage customs, not only of the Greeks,52 but of many
peoples in various eras, to view Finley’s observation with some scepticism and to
adopt the conclusion that ‘in all societies, marriage is associated with the exchange
of goods and with celebrations’.53 The conviction that the Spartiate customs were
different is a part of the picture of Sparta as a ‘prehistoric fossil’, a state where
ancient customs and laws, which had long disappeared in other Greek states,
survived until the classical period.
In attempting to reconstruct the marriage ceremonies in Sparta, it has to be
recalled that the Spartan gamos is not the only element of the process on which
the surviving sources do not shed light. The texts also say nothing of the period
of negotiations and decision-making before the engye or, as in Demaratos’s case,
the seizure took place. And as everywhere else, a period of observation and
deliberation must have preceded the first concrete steps towards arranging a union.
The first inquiries as to the suitability of prospective candidates were in Greece
conducted surreptitiously, in order to avoid offending the young man, which
would be unavoidable in the case of a public rejection of his candidature. Further
talks between the girl’s father and the prospective groom, which first and foremost
concentrated on the financial future of the spouses (i.e. the girl’s dowry),54 were
also confidential. Only when the parties reached a mutual agreement was the engye
celebrated.55
48
d"ntoV Hdt. VI 71, 1; škd"sqai gunaČka Polyb. XII 6b, 8; doŢnai gunaČka Plut. Ages. 30,3;
‡pro{kouV škd{dosqai Plut. Mor. 227 f.
49
labeČn (gunaČka) Plut. Ages. 30.
50
51
Quoted after M.I. Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece, London-New York 1981, 28.
52
See Oakley, Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens, 14–37.
53
C. Masset, ‘Prehistory of the Family’, in A. Burguière, Ch. Klapisch-Zuber, M. Segalen,
F. Zonabend (eds), A History of the Family, vol. 1, Oxford 1996, 77.
54
Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood, 12.
55
Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood, 13.

Ryszard Kulesza
Despite the silence of the sources, it is difficult to find fault in the

proposition that in Sparta, too, the final decision was preceded by a period in
which the suitability of prospective candidates was assessed. Apart from financial
matters, the ‘athletic nudity’ common in Sparta might have made matters easier.
As Scanlon observes, ‘Spartan female athletics’ was not only a ‘part of a prenuptial
education’,56 but generally athletic nudity was used as means to further Spartan
marriage.57 The physical aspect of the young Spartan women’s education was
clearly aimed at cultivating their eugenic quality.58
It is a separate issue whether the future bride was an object of active courtship:
ka[ to/V mnhsteusam}nouV t\V qugat}raV, eÍta met\ t«n teleut«n toŢ Lus|ndrou
p}nhtoV eÚreq}ntoV ‡peipam}nouV šzhm{wsan, Őti plo?sion m]n nom{zonteV
šqer|peuon, d{kaion d] ka[ crhst'n šk t®V pen{aV špign"nteV šgkat}lipon (Plut.
Lys. 30,6, cf. Mor. 230a).
The men betrothed to Lysander’s daughters, who broke the engagement when, after
Lysander’s death, they learnt that he had been poor, were fined, their offence being
that while they thought Lysander was a rich man they showed him their deference,
but they withdrew their word when they learnt that through his just and righteous
character he had become poor.
@O m]n L?sandroV šteqnŞkei, Ô d] t«n qugat}ra aŮtoŢ žti zíntoV šgguhs|menoV,
špe[ ka[ - paČV šrŞmh patr'V ‡pele{peto, ka[ Ô L?sandroV met\ t«n toŢ b{ou
katastroj«n ‡nej|nh p}nhV đn, Ö d] ‡ned?eto Ô šgguhs|menoV, oŮd] žjasken
xesqai gunaČka (Aelian, Varia historia VI 4, cf. X 15).
Lysander had died, but during his lifetime a man had been engaged to his daughter.
She was left as an orphan, and after Lysander’s death it turned out that he had been
poor. The man withdrew, saying that he would not take the girl as his wife (tr.
N.G. Wilson).
The story of Lysander’s daughter, or daughters, is unclear. The young men
vied for the future father-in-law’s favour while he was alive and they were
convinced of his affluence. When he died, they refused to finalise the marriage
(epignontes egkatelipon Plutarch; oude ephasken axesthai gynaika Aelian). The suitors
failed to make the second, decisive step (i.e., according to the opinion on Spartan
marriage prevalent today, they did not organise the ‘seizure’), which would have
meant the physical transfer of the woman to her husband’s house.
According to Hodkinson, the episode in question constitutes one more proof
of the tendency towards homogamy, which is characteristic for Sparta: ‘Such
56
Th.F. Scanlon, ‘Virgineum Gymnasium: Spartan Females and Early Greek Athletics’, in W.J.
Raschke (ed.), The Archaeology of the Olympics. The Olympics and Other Festivals of Antiquity,
Madison 1988, 185–186.
57
Scanlon, ‘Virgineum Gymnasium’, 189.
58
Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 93; Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 228.

a marriage would have entailed such a disparity in wealth for the suitors that it
apparently outweighed Lysander’s former prestige and influence’.59 This conclusion
may not necessarily be correct; not only homogamy, but also hypergamy might
have been involved. Also, at this point it has to be noted that in this case
possession of land, of which the suitors would have been aware, was probably not
the factor according to which Lysander’s affluence was judged. They were
obviously counting on a dowry of a different kind, either building false hopes on
the appearance of wealth or drawing false conclusions from gossip on Lysander’s
riches which probably circulated in the community.
In any case, this story demonstrates that there existed not only one period
of consideration, which preceded the engye, but also a second one, which preceded
the actual marriage. At some point the marriage ceremony (gamos) took place,
which might have been a modest celebration, but was probably similar to that
celebrated in other Greek cities. At any rate, with the exception of Plutarch, no
other author discussing the privately arranged Spartan marriage claims that the
Spartan wedding process was essentially different from that of other Greeks.
The ‘situation matrimoniale’
Generally speaking, scholars find no trouble in determining what motives

guided the Spartans in their choice of wives. The marriages d’amour are universally
ruled out,60 and the marriages de raison are considered to have been standard. The
Spartan ‘upper class’ wed mostly to further their own interests and within their
own circle, attempting to enlarge, or at least to preserve the groom’s estate.61
Penalisation of kakogamia, which will be discussed further on, demonstrates
beyond doubt that on the ‘matrimonial field’ the rich Spartans behaved just as the
other rich Greeks, and with the same aggressiveness, as suggested precisely by the
law against ‘bad marriage’, which according to Plutarch’s comment was aimed at
preventing marriages arranged purely on financial grounds.62 According to Hodkin-
son, ‘The variety of potential influences suggests that there were strong reasons in
59
Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 407; ‘Such a marriage would have meant a drop in status and
wealth for the suitors and for their potential children, despite the fact that the girls’ father had
been one of the most prestigious and influential men in Sparta’ (Hodkinson, ‘Inheritance,
Marriage and Demography’, 91).
60
‘Selten bestimmte Liebe oder Lustgewinn das Motiv zum Heiraten’ (Willing, ‘Zwischen Oikos
und Kosmos’, 257).
61
Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 96; Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 81–82, 123, 409; Kulesza,
Sparta, 118.
62
Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 96.

Ryszard Kulesza
mid-fifth-century Sparta for the growth of marriage customs aimed at concentrating

property and limiting the number of heirs’.63
Together with the suggestion that the Spartans were economically motivated
in arranging their marriages, it is pointed out that in comparison to other Greek
states64 the concept of family had relatively low value and family ties were weak.65
Additionally, the fact that a father was often absent is supposed to have resulted in
an extraordinary responsibility and independence of women.66 In the Spartan
ideology the family was, to quote Finley, ‘minimized as a unit of either affection or
authority, and replaced by overlapping male groupings’.67 Powell even makes the
observation that ‘it seems that model Spartans did not love their families; they loved
the State’.68 This point of view seems to find little corroboration in the sources and is
supported mostly by a general conviction rather than by common sense. More
research is undoubtedly needed, but there seems to be ample evidence69 that
a Spartiate held his family in very high esteem.70 Even Finley himself, who elsewhere
questioned the importance of the family ties, admitted that there were, in fact,
families which seem to have been able to influence advancement procedures to the
family members’ benefit, beginning, at the first opportunity, with the children.71
The fact that the members of the elite took care of their offspring’s advancement
clearly demonstrates the importance of the family ties, similar to the fact that the
military command posts abroad were generally dominated by men from the leading
families.72 The existence of an economic motivation in arranging marriages alone
suggests that the value attached to family was high rather than otherwise.
When the initial requirements (i.e. those concerning economic factors) were
fulfilled, the primary aim of marriage was to breed offspring. In Sparta, the
‘making of children’ (teknopoiia) was probably exceptionally important.73 It was
63
Hodkinson, ‘Inheritance, Marriage and Demography’, 106.
64
‘It is well known that the family was not considered as important in Sparta as in the other
Greek states’ (Oliva, Sparta and her Social Problems, 29).
65
Weak ties with parents, especially with the father (B. Kunstler, ‘Family Dynamics and Female
Power in Ancient Sparta’, Helios 13 [1987], 33), and weak ties also between siblings (Blundell,
Women in Ancient Greece, 151).
66
den Boer, Laconian Studies, 229.
67
Quoted after Finley, Economy and Society, 28.
68
A. Powell, ‘Dining Groups, Marriage, Homosexuality’, in M. Whitby (ed.), Sparta, Edinburgh
2002 (= Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Social and Political History from 479, London 1978),
93.
69
See, among others, Xen. Ages. 11, 13.
70
Kulesza, Sparta, 114.
71
M.I. Finley, ‘Sparta’, in J.-P. Vernant (ed.), Problèmes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne, Paris 1968, 152.
72
S. Hodkinson, ‘Warfare, Wealth, and the crisis of Spartiate society’, in J. Rich, G. Shipley (eds),
War and Society in the Greek World, London-New York 1993, 159, cf. 155, 161.
73

a categorical imperative to have children. This resulted from a conjunction of

various factors: the state’s policy (the state needed as many citizens as possible),
social demand (having offspring was a necessary feature of a model Spartiate), the
requirements of the family (the desire to retain property) and individual need (the
desire to continue one’s bloodline). The overall aim of marriage was clear and
evident to all parties, as evinced by the famous formula from Menander’s play:
‘I give (her) to you for the ploughing of legitimate children (ep aroto ton gnesion
paidon)’ (Perikeiromene 1013–1014). To have children was the expectation of both
the father and the state.74 The citizen was expected to be able to take care of his
interests (see Hdt. V 39) and probably the majority of Spartiates did not have any
problem with that.
The ordinary Spartan married couple was young and capable of bearing
offspring. Sometimes, however, complications occurred, caused by the infertility of
one of the spouses.75 Yet it was always the wife who was blamed for the lack of
children. A different situation arose when a man had no children from more than
one marriage.76 An original Spartan remedy for barrenness was what according to
today’s standards could be called a mutual consent to extra-marital relations.77
A surrogate father
eË ge m}ntoi sumba{h geraiř n}an žcein, Ôrín to/V thliko?touV jul|ttontaV

m|lista t\V gunaČkaV, t‡nant{a ka[ to?tou šn"mise· tř g\r presb?t¯ špo{hsen,
Ôpo{ou ‡ndr'V sím| te ka[ yuc«n ‡gasqe{h, toŢton špagagom}n2 teknopoiŞsas-
qai (Xen. Lak. Pol. 1,7).
Seeing that old men watch over their wives most jealously, when they happen to
be married to a young woman, he decreed something quite contrary to this practice
too; he made the old man bring in a [sc. younger] man, whose body and soul he
admired, to father a child for himself. (tr. M. Lipka)
šx®n m]n g\r ‡ndr[ presbut}r2 n}aV gunaik"V, eĂ dŞ tina tín kalín ka[ ‡gaqín
‡sp|saito n}wn ka[ dokim|seien, eĂsagageČn par’ aŮt«n ka[ plŞsanta genna{ou
sp}rmatoV Ëdion aÚtoČV poiŞsasqai t' gennhq}n (Plut. Lyk. 15,12–13).
74
R. Turasiewicz, ‘Stanowisko bezżennych w Sparcie epoki klasycznej’ [Situation of the bachelors
in Sparta of the Classical Period], Meander 19 (1964), 435–437.
75
Apparently, in Greece there were supposed to have been 10% of infertile women and 3% of
infertile men, as quoted by N. Demand (Birth, Death, and Motherhood, 17) after Corvisier.
76
den Boer, Laconian Studies, 223; according to Nancy Demand, a woman could, for instance,
surreptitiously substitute a baby boy for a girl, or (the more difficult solution) pretend to be
pregnant; Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood, 22.
77
The reason for this step was usually to provide an heir in a childless marriage (Oliva, Sparta
and her Social Problems, 31–32).

Ryszard Kulesza
It was permitted for an elderly husband of a young wife, if he liked and approved
of some fine young gentleman, to bring him to her, and filling her with good seed,
to adopt the offspring as his own.
The question arises how an old man (geraios in Xenophon, presbyteros in
Plutarch) could have a young wife. Among the reasons for marriage at an older age
Michael Lipka mentions love, the first wife’s death in childbirth, or the marriage
of the heiress to the closest unmarried male relative.78 The overwhelming majority
of scholars associate such unequal marriages either generally with the issues of
inheritance,79 or specifically with the institution of the epiclerate.80 The union of
an old man with a young wife discussed by Xenophon (Lak. Pol. 1,7 cf. Plut. Lyk.
15,7) was surely typically the outcome of just such a marriage between an heiress
and her father’s brother. The situation was obviously frequent enough to sanction
the special solution, according to which the aged husband could bring a young
partner to his own wife.81
The choice belonged to the geraios; it is not, however, clear whether he
simply had the right, or was actually obliged, to make it. Plutarch’s use of the word
exen suggests the decision of the old man was voluntary. Xenophon, by contrast,
can be understood differently. If this solution was a barrier to the usual jealous
stance of old husbands, it ought to be understood that the geraios was required
rather than only allowed to make his choice of a young partner for his wife. The
choice was limited to a certain group of young men who fulfilled the requirements
concerning their mind and body (Xenophon’s soma kai psyche; Plutarch’s ton kalon
kagathon). It can therefore be assumed, that an agamos, who was under some
atimia, could not have been chosen as the sperm donor. What is possible, however,
at least theoretically, is the existence of a homosexual-bisexual triangle, in which
the geraios would share his wife with his homosexual partner, availing himself of
his services also as a surrogate father.
How this solution functioned in practice remains a mystery. It is not known
how much time the surrogate father would spend with the woman; whether he
would dwell with his ‘adopted family’ permanently, until clear indications of
pregnancy were evident, or whether he only paid visits. In any case, when his task
was fulfilled, his continuing presence (at least on the principles valid hitherto) no
longer had any rationale.
78
79
On connection with inheritance, see Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 45.
80
‘Il y a tout de croire que, dans la plupart des cas, le marriage d’une jeune fille avec un partenaire
plus âgé était conforme à l’épiclerat’ (E. Karabelias, ‘L’épiclerat à Sparte’, 479); Pomeroy, Spartan
Women, 44; Ducat, ‘La femme de Sparte’, 396.
81

It is certain that the Spartans’ intention in introducing this solution to

a couple’s childlessness was to secure offspring. The stress put on the qualities of
the ‘surrogate father’ may, but does not have to, result from the conviction that
the ‘noble seed’ (Plut. Lyk. 15,12) of the warriors should be distributed as widely
as possible throughout the community.82
The whole solution was connected not only with procreative goals, but also
with economic ones. The aim was not just that this particular young woman
should give birth, because in that case she would have been married to some brave
young man. By taking care of teknopoiia, and thereby also combating oliganthropia,
the Spartans introduced the figure of the ‘surrogate father’, thus creating concessions
for the wealthy men who might ‘wish to keep their fortunes from being divided
into small portions while increasing the numbers of their clan’.83
A surrogate mother
Borrowing of wives was another type of survival strategy, probably in

a similar way connected with both infertility and financial issues:
eĂ d} tiV aă gunaik[ m]n sunoikeČn m« bo?loito, t}knwn d] ‡xiol"gwn špiqumo{h,
ka[ toŢto n"mimon špo{hsen, Żntina [Śn] eáteknon ka[ genna{an Ôrôh, pe{santa
t'n žconta šk ta?thV teknopoieČsqai. ka[ poll\ m]n toiaŢta sunecérei. aÉ te g\r
gunaČkeV ditto/V oËkouV bo?lontai kat}cein, oÉ te ndreV ‡deljo/V toČV pais[
proslamb|nein, oĘ toŢ m]n g}nouV ka[ t®V dun|mewV koinwnoŢsi, tín d] crhm|twn
oŮk ‡ntipoioŢntai (Xen. Lak. Pol. 1,8–9).
On the other hand he made it legal for someone who did not wish to cohabit with
a woman, but desired worthy children, to beget children with a woman when he saw
her to be rich in offspring and noble, provided that he had her husband’s consent. And
he made many such concessions. For the women want to possess two households;
while for their children the men want to obtain brothers who are members of the clan
and participate in its power, but do not lay claim to the property (tr. M. Lipka).
šx®n d] p|lin ‡ndr[ crhstř, tín eŮt}knwn tin\ ka[ swjr"nwn qaum|santi
gunaikín ›t}r2 gegamhm}nhn, peČsai t'n ndra sunelqeČn, îsper šn cér<
kallik|rp2 jute?onta ka[ poio?menon paČdaV ‡gaqo?V, ‡gaqín Ôma{mouV ka[
suggeneČV šsom}nouV (Plut. Lyk. 15,12–13).
It was also permitted for a respectable man, if he admired another man’s wife who
had borne good children and was well behaved, to have intercourse with her with
her husband’s consent, sowing in a fertile field, so to speak, and producing good
children, who would be blood-relatives of a good family.
82
den Boer, Laconian Studies, 216–217.
83
G. Proietti, Xenophon’s Sparta. An Introduction (Mnemosyne Suppl. 98), Leiden 1987, 48.

Ryszard Kulesza
According to Xenophon, a man who au gynaiki synoikein me bouloito could

borrow another woman. Plutarch does nothing to help us explain this, as he
remains silent regarding the reasons for such action. The key word, synoikein, is
translated by some scholars as ‘marry’,84 while others vote for its common sense
of ‘cohabit’, ‘live with’, or ‘have intercourse with’.85 I would agree with the latter
here; it is my opinion that Xenophon used synoikein in the meaning of ‘having
intercourse with’.86
Generally it is quite difficult to identify the protagonists here. According to
the interpretation presented above, Xenophon means the husband, but Plutarch
mentions no more than an aner chrestos. From the formal point of view,87 the
question may, then, be posed whether the man could not have been an agamos.
It seems that this eventuality can be ruled out, although the question still remains
if, since the aner chrestos could take a married woman for himself, there might have
existed a different aner, who was not allowed to do so. A tresas, or more generally
a kakos, seems to be an obvious candidate for such an exclusion.
Even less is known of the man’s wife. It can be guessed that her infertility
might have been the reason why a husband did not want to synoikein with her any
longer. It is unclear what would happen to the wife afterwards. Since it was not
a Spartan custom to keep two wives at home, it can be assumed she was sent back
to her parental home.88
The choice of the woman seems to be dominated by eugenic motivations.89
Both Xenophon and Plutarch call her euteknos (‘deesed with good children’). But it
is only Xenophon who calls her also gennaia,90 while Plutarch uses the word
84
Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 239; C. Mossé, ‘Women in the Spartan Revolutions’, 143; J. Christien-
-Tregaro, ‘Les bâtards spartiates’, in M.-M. Mactoux, E. Geny (eds), Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, 7.
Anthropologie et société, Paris 1993, 35; Millender, ‘Athenian Ideology’, 364; R. Lane Fox, ‘Aspects
of Inheritance in the Greek World’, in P. Cartledge, F.D. Harvey, Crux. Essays in Greek History
presented to G.E.M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th birthday, London 1985, 223; Bickerman, ‘La
conception du marriage’, 3–4.
85
Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 46–47; Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood, 14; Patterson, ‘Marriage
and the Married Women’, 58–59.
86
87
‘By gunaik[ we have to understand “any woman”, not only the wife of the man who asks for
the liaison with another woman. Otherwise, the word would need to have the article’ (Lipka,
Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, 110).
88
There exist, however, historical analogies to keeping two wives in such cases. Pandley quotes
the example of the Kamor tribe in the south-west of the Raipur district: ‘In case when the wife
is sterile (barren), the husband may bring another wife for the sake of children but, in such
case, the first wife is not thrown out she also lives with her husband’ (G.D. Pandley, Fertility
and Family Planning in Primitive Tribes, New Delhi 2002, 263).
89
90

sophronon, thus stressing the woman’s character. In this case we should probably
follow Xenophon, who was closer to Spartan reality. The word gennaia can be
understood as ‘well-born’, which would substantiate the assumption that in the
practice of wife-borrowing the tendency to homogamy is evident. According to
Hodkinson, Xenophon’s remark on ‘the kind of wife a man would request to
borrow’ implies that ‘she would be of similar status’.91 Yet in this case the liaison
is not a regular marriage, and the status of the woman is also not made clear. Her
‘good birth’ may not translate to her material status, and the context of the whole
event may indicate that the woman is simply a pedigreed individual which would
guarantee pedigreed offspring.
The choice was made by the husband interested in borrowing himself a wife.
Xenophon stresses that women like to have two oikoi,92 and their husbands are
happy too, since the sons from the woman’s new liaison are brothers to those from
the old marriage. Plutarch in turn, referring to Plato, suggests that ‘Lycurgus
believed that children were not their fathers’ property but were common property
of the state’.93 Undoubtedly Xenophon is the author closer to historical reality.
It is not, however, clear what exactly is meant by ‘the clan’ (tou genous) and
‘power’ (tes dynameos).94 In any case, what is involved here are values which are
not material and are connected with social position, deriving perhaps from the
dynamis granted within the state to members of better families.
Again, the question is how the enterprise worked in practice. The woman
obviously retained connection with both her houses, the old and the new.
Assuming she had been first married in her eighteenth year and had borne two or
three children (it is not known how many children would be enough to call her
‘deesed with good children’), she would necessarily be twenty-five, perhaps
twenty-seven by the time her children entered the state education system and she
was ready to bear children in her new home without compromising her maternal
duties in the old one. It is, however, most probable that younger women were used
as surrogate mothers, without waiting for them to bring up their children from
their original marriage.
In any case it can be assumed that the woman somehow functioned within
both households, which made the whole enterprise a certain success; since the
childless man took himself a proven child-bearer, sooner or later the woman was
91
Hodkinson, Wealth and Property, 407; ‘Eine Junggeselle holt sich eine verheiratete Frau (aus der
Oberschicht!) zur Erzeugung von Kindern’ (Thommen, ‘Spartanische Frauen’, 142).
92
The conviction that when the wives wanted to take charge of two households, that ‘obviously
[meant] two kleroi’ (Piper, ‘Wealthy Spartan Women’, 5) seems to me ungrounded.
93
Mossé, ‘Women in the Spartan Revolutions’, 143.
94
Proietti, Xenophon’s Sparta, 48.

Ryszard Kulesza
certain to conceive, impregnated by either the old or the new husband. The result
of the liaison was the birth of a child (teknon axiologon); the child which, I assume,
the husband did not get from his first wife. In this way, of course, the interest of
the state was realized,95 but it was only an indirect result dependent on the
fulfilment of the particular goal.
Plutarch does not suggest that such liaisons were a norm in Sparta;96 neither
does Xenophon mention how often such measures were resorted to. They both
assume the custom is old, yet it would be difficult to judge its chronology on this
basis.97 It is generally assumed today that ‘wife-sharing must have arisen in
response to the ever-pressing need to keep up the number of Spartan homoioi’.98
Mossé, however, is of the opinion that the devices described by Xenophon were
‘only emergency arrangements, perhaps to stop the manpower shortage at the end
of the Peloponnesian War’.99
From Xenophon’s text it appears that there existed many practices of this
kind (ka[ poll\ m]n toiaŢta sunecérei). It has to be pointed out that the
context of this piece of information clearly indicates that it refers to the situation
of a man taking a married woman, and that from then on she has two homes, and
not to any other set of circumstances. A woman can have two homes if, as
Xenophon describes, she has been borrowed for procreative reasons. The only
other case would be that the woman was given away, still for procreative reasons.
Any other situation resulting in the woman’s having two homes is difficult to
imagine. The multiplicity of similar solutions mentioned by Xenophon may
perhaps be explained by the fact that after fulfilling her mission, i.e. giving birth
to a child, the woman normally returned to her old home but may have also
stayed on to bear other children, and in this case her stay in her second home
would have been prolonged.
The only known case of this kind is described by Polybius:
ka[ gennŞsanta paČdaV Äkano/V škd"sqai gunaČk| tini tín j{lwn kal'n ka[
s?nhqeV (Polyb. XII 6b,8).
When a man had begotten enough children, it was an honourable custom for him
to give a wife away to one of his friends.
The word ekdosthai is usually translated as ‘give a wife away’, although it
would be worth considering another meaning – ‘give to wife’; in other words,
95
Ducat, ‘La femme de Sparte’, 396.
96
J.T. Hooker, The Ancient Spartans, London 1980, 136–137.
97
98
Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 103–104; MacDowell, Spartan Law, 85; Millender, ‘Athenian
Ideology’, 365.
99
Mossé, ‘Women in the Spartan Revolutions’, 143.

a husband who had enough children would marry his wife to his friend. But,
however this is understood, a woman would become, de facto rather than de iure,
the wife of another Spartiate. This indicates that in some period there was in
Sparta a deficit of fertile wives. Even if this problem did not concern the entire
community, it concerned at least a certain group, within the boundaries of which
this procreative selection was confined.
A separate set of questions posed recently with respect to wife-sharing
concerns the issue of the role of women in those marital machinations. At first
glance it may seem that they were treated in a completely instrumental manner.
As a result of the new scholarly perception, probably owing to gender studies,
opposite conclusions have been formulated. Today, many scholars seem to doubt
Spartan women’s passivity. Sarah Pomeroy proposes an outright change of
terminology and substituting the hitherto-used phrases like ‘wife-sharing’ or
‘wife-borrowing’ with terms such as ‘husband-doubling’ or ‘male-partner dup-
lication’, since, as she claims, the wife was ‘an active participant in the arrangement’
of the whole enterprise.100 Blundell adds that the ‘assertive Spartan women were
perhaps unlikely to have allowed themselves to be used in quite so cursory
a fashion, and we can speculate that some of the men who asked a husband’s
permission to go to bed with his wife had first of all made contact with the woman
concerned’.101 This is, of course, possible, but does not have the slightest
corroboration in the sources. Far more convincing seems to be the conclusion that
within the framework of wife-sharing the woman became ‘the control focus
uniting both families’,102 and that indeed, from the subjective point of view, ‘the
status of the woman was underlined, not undermined’.103
It is absolutely certain, however, that the woman took the central position
within the framework of fraternal polyandry.
100
Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 39–40.
101
Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 154.
102
‘(…) especially if her children by her different partners subsequently intermarried’ (although the
latter supposition refers to the information derived from Philon [On Special Laws 3, 4, 22],
according to whom Spartiates allowed marriages between homometrioi, children of one mother,
but different fathers, and again finds no corroboration in the sources), Hodkinson, Property and
Wealth, 438. In such a domestic arrangement the mother was a ‘dominant stable figure in the
family’, Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 154. As it is evident from the passage in Philon’s On
Special Laws, the situation in Sparta is opposite to that found in Athens. In Sparta allowed
were marriages between homometrioi, whereas in Athens between homopatrioi. As Schmitz
correctly observes, ‘Es geht bei diesen Bestimmungen nicht um Inzestverbote, sondern um
Besitzstrategien’ (Schmitz, ‘Die geschorene Braut’, 579).
103

Ryszard Kulesza
Fraternal polyandry
par\ m]n g\r toČV Lakedaimon{oiV ka[ p|trion ń ka[ s?nhqeV treČV ndraV žcein
t«n gunaČka ka[ t}ttaraV, tot] d] ka[ ple{ouV ‡deljo/V ×ntaV, ka[ t\ t}kna
to?twn eÍnai koin|, ka[ gennŞsanta paČdaV Äkano/V škd"sqai gunaČk| tini tín
j{lwn kal'n ka[ s?nhqeV (Polyb. XII 6b,8).
For among the Lakedaimonians it was a traditional custom for three or four men
to have the same wife, sometimes more if they were brothers. The children of these
belonged to them in common. When a man had begotten enough children, it was
an honourable custom for him to give a wife away to one of his friends.
It is most probable that all the men in question were always brothers.104
From the formal point of view, only one of the brothers, the eldest, entered the
marriage union, and the others were invited to join the liaison.105
In Perentidis’ opinion,106 the greatest difference between fraternal polyandry and
wife-sharing is the fact that in the former the children belonged to the men in common.
It is, of course, possible, as MacDowell maintains,107 that with regard to the issue of the
common paternity of children Polybius may have confused Sparta with some other
state (e.g. with Plato’s ‘Polis’ [Pol. 457d]), or may have misunderstood the remark
attributed to Lycurgus that children were not their father’s property but belonged to
the polis (koinous tes poleos, Plut. Lyk. 15,14). If, however, several men were indeed to
have had one wife, which MacDowell does not question in principle, it would be
a rational solution to consider all the children of the liaison to be their common
offspring, not the least because of the problems with establishing their true paternity.108
But still we ask what could have persuaded all the parties concerned to enter
such a liaison. From a male’s point of view, polyandry means ‘genetic suicide’,109
and in order to convince individuals to adopt this solution some higher reasons
must have been in play. According to Pomeroy, ‘fraternal polyandry was also
a form of family limitation, for one shared wife could not have produced as many
children for the brothers as individual wives might have’.110 The majority of
scholars point to economic factors, assuming that fraternal polyandry helped
104
‘Three or four Spartan men, perhaps more, said Polybius (Hist. XII 6b,8) sometimes married one
and the same woman: I take him to say these husbands are always brothers taking adelphous
ontas with all the preceding accusatives’ (Lane Fox, ‘Aspects of Inheritance’, 222).
105
S. Perentidis, ‘Réflexions sur la polyandrie à Sparte dans l’Antiquité’, RHDFE 75 (1997), 28;
106
Perentidis, ‘Réflexions sur la polyandrie’, 28.
107
MacDowell, Spartan Law, 86.
108
Kulesza, Sparta, 122–123.
109
Fisher, Anatomy of Love, 71.
110
Pomeroy, Spartan wives, 47.

concentrate ‘properties which would otherwise be divided’.111 According to Robin

Lane Fox, it was not the case that there were not enough ‘well-born girls’ to go
round, but that the wife of several husbands was herself a heiress: ‘In a warrior
society, where young men stood in the front rank, fathers would fear early
bereavement for their daughters. For an heiress, they could demand not one
brother but three, not part of an estate, but the entire property’.112 As Hodkinson
maintains, ‘The economic background to a polyandrous marriage must often have
been that the woman was wealthier than each of her male partners’.113
Historical analogies demonstrate that polyandry, which is generally a rare
phenomenon, occurs exclusively under peculiar circumstances, such as when the
women are very rich indeed114 or the brothers can collectively afford only one
wife.115 In general, the aim of polyandry is to protect property.116 Apart from
economic reasons, it can also be caused by ‘the disequilibrium in the ratio of sexes’,
manifesting itself in the shortage of women.117 Some scholars’ interpretations of
Spartan polyandry prefer this latter interpretation.
It is not known to which period all this may refer, whether to a period close
to Polybius’s own, or to the classical period, or perhaps to a period of crisis for
Sparta (the third century BC, for instance, would constitute an appropriate context
for this practice). Various answers have been given. According to one of them,
fraternal polyandry was resorted to only in times of crisis;118 but that, as Ogden
rightly observes, does not follow from Polybius’s account.119 Fraternal polyandry is
more often associated with the earthquake in the sixth decade of the fifth century
BC and the following demographic crisis (oliganthropia in general, shortage of
women in particular).120 According to Pomeroy, in turn, such solutions were
111
Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 82; ‘Polyandry can be readily explained as a consequence of
poverty’ (Sealey, Women and Law in Classical Greece, 88); As the reason for fraternal polyandry,
‘conserver la propriété familiale dans son integralité’ (Perentidis, ‘Réflexions sur la polyandrie’, 28).
112
Lane Fox, ‘Aspects of Inheritance’, 223.
113
114
Fisher, Anatomy of Love, 69.
115
Fisher gives the example of the Pahari, a tribe in northern India, where wives are so expensive
that two brothers often combine their resources to pay the ‘bride price’ to a girl’s father. If they
subsequently grow rich, they buy a second wife, whom they also use together (Fisher, Anatomy
of Love, 71).
116
J. Goody, The oriental, the ancient and the primitive. Systems of marriage and the family in the
pre-industrial societies of Eurasia, Cambridge 1990, 139–140; Fisher, Anatomy of Love, 70;
S.D. Singh, Polyandry in Ancient India, New Dehli 1978, 29.
117
Singh, Polyandry in Ancient India, 29.
118
119
Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 239; Perentidis, ‘Réflexions sur la polyandrie’, 29.
120
‘Was Polybios im 2. Jh. p|trion nennt, kann ganz gut erst im 5. Jh. aufgekommen sein’
(L. Ziehen, ‘Das spartanische Bevölkerungsproblem’, Hermes 68 [1933], 234, n. 1); Perentidis,

Ryszard Kulesza
possibly introduced after Epitadeus’s rhetra, the Peloponnesian War and perhaps
after the Battle of Leuktra.121
Intervention of the state – the marriage ‘law’
In solutions described hitherto, decisions regarding marriage were left in the

hands of the Spartiates themselves, that is, to the individual choice of the
interested party. Basically the manner in which the marital union was finalised
was similar to that in other Greek poleis, although the Spartan polis, standing
guard over the interests of the entire community or of a part of it, permitted
certain extraordinary devices. In effect, Modrzejewski’s opinion can be applied also
to Sparta: ‘L’intervention de la collectivité se limite ici a règlementer les conditions
de validité et les effets de cet acte: elle fixe les barriers au-delà desquelles le mariage
legitime n’est pas possible et determine les consequences d’une union reconnue
licite en ce qui concerne le statut de la femme et des enfants au groupe social aux
biens’.122
The state’s intervention, which took a concrete administrative form, resulted
predominantly from demographic and social factors.
pr'V d] to?toiV ka[ ‡popa?saV toŢ Ôp"te bo?lointo śkastoi gunaČka gesqai,
žtaxen šn ‡kmaČV tín swm|twn to/V g|mouV poieČsqai, ka[ toŢto sumj}ron tĽ
eŮgon{< nom{zwn (Xen. Lak. Pol. 1,6).
In addition to these measures he abolished the practice allowing men and women
to marry when they wanted, and decreed that the wedding should take place when
they were in their prime, because he thought this too would help produce good
progeny (tr. M. Lipka).
#Eg|moun d] di’ ˆrpag®V, oŮ mikr\V oŮd] ‡érouV pr'V g|mon, ‡ll\ ka[ ‡kma-
zo?saV ka[ pepe{rouV (Plut. Lyk. 15,4).
They used to marry by seizure – not little girls or ones unripe for marriage, but in
their prime and mature (tr. D.M. MacDowell).
Actually, both authors say the same thing, although Xenophon expresses
himself in more general terms, while Plutarch clearly indicates the existence of the
age criterion for women. The first author expressly points to eugonia as the reason
for marrying in the period of maturity, but the second one clearly means the same.
‘Réflexions sur polyandrie’, 29. See L. Wierschowski, ‘Die demographisch-politischen Auswir-

kungen des Erdhebens von 464 v. Chr. für Sparta’, in E. Olshausen, H. Sonnabend (eds),
Naturkatastrophen in der antiken Welt, Bonn 1998, 304–306, and generally Thommen, ‘Spartanische
Frauen’, 143.
121
122
Modrzejewski, ‘La structure juridique’, 232.

According to MacDowell, the fact that Xenophon expresses his opinion in the
context of his remark on older men ‘is not saying that there was any restriction
on the age of the man’.123 This is not necessarily the correct conclusion. It is only
further in the text that Xenophon mentions aged husbands; in this place he is
referring rather to the model married couple, which ought to be immediately ready
to produce offspring. The woman’s maturity is a conditio sine qua non in this case,
but the fines for marrying too late indicate the legislators’ interest in men as well.
I consider it possible that the commandment to marry en akme ton somaton in
reality referred to both sexes and Plutarch incorrectly narrowed it down to women
only. This is de facto the contemporary scholarly view. Some scholars point to the
individual character of the suggested age,124 others to about the eighteenth year of
life125 or more generally to the age bracket ‘perhaps between ages of eighteen and
twenty’.126 Men are supposed to have established families at the age of ca.
twenty-five,127 around thirty128 or before thirty.129
Even if Spartan men were not legally required to marry by a certain age, the
fines for agamia, opsigamia and kakogamia clearly indicate that ‘the law encouraged
men to marry before reaching a certain age’:130
ń g|r, ěV žoiken, šn Sp|rt¯ ka[ ‡gam{ou d{kh ka[ Óyigam{ou ka[ kakogam{ou·
ta?t¯ d] Úp®gon m|lista to/V ‡nt[ tín ‡gaqín ka[ oĂke{wn toČV plous{oiV
khde?ontaV (Plut. Lys. 30,7).
There was, it appears, in Sparta a legal action for not marrying and for marrying
late and for marrying badly. Subject to this were in particular those who allied
themselves to rich men instead of good men and relatives.
It is necessary to ask here whether the fine would be imposed after the
young man reached a certain age, or rather when he tarried too long. Either of
these possibilities is difficult to rule out. MacDowell assumes that ‘opsigamion is
marrying late; probably that means after the age at which a man became guilty of
123
MacDowell, Spartan Law, 72–73.
124
‘Dieser Zeitpunkt kann von Frau zu Frau um einige Jahre variieren und muß daher individuell
festgestellt werden’ (M.H. Dettenhofer, ‘Die Frauen von Sparta: Gesellschaftliche Position und
politische Relevanz’, Klio 75 (1993), 64, n. 17).
125
Pomeroy, Goddesses, 42; Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 94–95; Mossé, ‘Women in the Spartan
Revolutions’, 142; Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 153.
126
Hodkinson, ‘Inheritance, Marriage and Demography’, 90; Scanlon, ‘Virgineum Gymnasium’,
191; Thommen, ‘Spartanische Frauen’, 141; ‘the lower age-limit’ – 18 years, the upper limit – 20
years; normally they would be given in marriage at twenty (Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 95).
127
Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 153; Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 94.
128
Lipka, Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, 108; R. Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World,
London 1991, 149.
129
Dettenhofer, ‘Die Frauen von Sparta’, 64.
130

Ryszard Kulesza
agamion if he remained unmarried’.131 In Turasiewicz’s opinion, however, the fine

for opsigamia was imposed when the man neglected to go through with the actual
marriage too long after the engye.132 I consider, however, the most probable case to
be that the fine was imposed when a man of an age advanced enough to preclude
begetting children (if there were no additional factors which would make it
possible for the geraios to have nea) would enter the marital union. In this case the
reason to penalise opsigamion may have been the conviction that old sperm is of
inferior quality.133 But such cases can also be interpreted financially, and then the
necessary question is whether the state was not safeguarding the economic
interests of the family, which could be compromised by the decisions of a man
who in his old age would marry a woman capable of bearing rivals to his earlier
offspring.
The ius trium liberorum, like the regulations concerning opsigamia, was
dictated by social considerations:
boul"menoV g\r Ô nomoq}thV ěV ple{stouV eÍnai to/V Sparti|taV, pro|getai to/V
pol{taV Őti ple{stouV poieČsqai paČdaV· žsti g\r aŮtoČV n"moV t'n m]n gennŞsanta
treČV uÄo/V jrouron eÍnai, t'n d] t}ttaraV ‡tel® p|ntwn (Arist. Pol. 1270b,1–4).
Wishing that the Spartiates should be as many as possible, the legislator encourages
the citizens to produce as many children as possible; for they have a law that a man
who has begotten three sons is to be exempt from military service, and one who
has begotten four is to be exempt from all contributions.
A ‘decline in marital fertility’ is commonly considered to be the reason for
this regulation. Certainly ‘the very fact that there were official incentives for
Spartiates to bear additional sons may suggest a perception by the authorities of
a general tendency to limit family sizes’.134 These rewards for begetting three or
four sons may indicate that such cases were desirable and/or rare and that the
Spartiates were content to have just two sons maximum (or even just one son).135
The prosopographic material does not resolve the doubts in this matter.
In the ‘Prosopographia Lacedaemonica’ we discover Demainete (no. 220), mother
of eight sons, and Alexippa (no. 52), mother of seven sons. All the other women
have had three (Deinicha no. 222) or two sons (Alkathoa no. 110, Kleora no. 440,
Lampito no. 474, Leandris no. 479, Ksenopetheia no. 570, Timaia no. 695,
131
132
Turasiewicz, ‘Stanowisko bezżennych w Sparcie’, 442.
133
Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 235–236.
134
135
An interesting aspect of the problem was pointed out to me by Aleksander Wolicki, according
to whom the psychological barrier falls not between two and three sons, but rather between
one and two sons (i.e. the boundary of property division). According to Wolicki, the Spartans
would usually be happy with having just one son, which I find very probable.

Leonidas’s sister no. 807). Of men, Archidamos III (no. 158) had three sons,
Kleombrotos I, Kleomenes II and Demarmenos had two. The total fertility rate of
an average Spartan family is not known. On the basis of the ius trium liberorum we
can only speculate that having three sons must have been a rather rare phenomenon.
It is also interesting to speculate what the privileges granted to fathers of
many sons actually were. In MacDowell’s opinion, ‘the sense of aphrouros is
probably exemption from all military service, not merely from routine guards, for
at Sparta the word phroura was used of campaigns abroad’.136 Ateles panton, in turn,
would encompass ‘exemption both from military service and from taxation’.137
The only known duty of a Spartiate which had a material dimension was
contributing his monthly share to the syssitia. The exemption granted to fathers
of many sons was probably the exemption from this contribution.
Granting those, and not any other, privileges seems to be an indication of the
state’s concern with raising the fertility rate of the families, but it also indicates that this
was a problematic issue. Obviously the Spartans were loath to have large families, and
the character of the incentives clearly shows that they were not addressed to the elites.
As D.M. MacDowell observes, ‘Neither author tells us whether the exemp-
tions took effect as soon as the sons had been born, or not until they had reached
military age; but even in the latter case they were very substantial privileges’.138 If the
aim was indeed to assist large families, e.g. by rescinding the father’s contributions to
the syssitia, it can be assumed that the regulation came into force with the birth of
the fourth son. On the other hand, it is difficult to expect that the father of many
sons would be exempt from military service during campaigns, especially in Sparta,
whose ideology was based on martial ideals. To the contrary, having begotten a son
would make a man an obvious candidate for a dangerous expedition. In these
circumstances we would expect rather an exemption from routine garrison duty.
In the cases of opsigamia and ius trium liberorum demographic and social
motivations can be detected on the part of the state. In the case of kakogamia,
mainly social motivations are in play.
The term kakogamion may be understood in various ways. Firstly, it can refer
to the tresantes; in Ogden’s words, ‘since kakos can mean cowardly, the term
kakogamion may have meant marrying as a coward, or marrying the daughter of
a coward’.139 Secondly, the word kakos may mean ‘low-born’ or ‘physically mean’,
so kakogamion would have been ‘marriage by a physically mean man’.140 Thirdly, the
136
MacDowell, Spartan Law, 76. With reference to Xen. Lak. Pol. 13, 11; Hell. II 4, 29.
137
138
139
Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 230.
140
Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 236–237.

Ryszard Kulesza
word kakos can be read as simply ‘bad’, and then kakogamion would mean ‘bad
behaviour with regard to marriage’, a meaning which seems to fit in the context of
Plutarch’s remark concerning Lysander.141 In MacDowell’s opinion, ‘kakogamion,
marrying badly, presumably meant marrying the daughter of a man who either had
committed some offence or was not a Spartiate’.142 This last possibility seems to be
purely theoretical. All these propositions point to situations in which a bridegroom
did not conform to the Spartan ideal of the husband and the citizen. Turasiewicz’s
interpretation, however, goes in a different direction; according to him, ‘the legal
basis for the charge of kakogamion was constituted by (...) a broken engagement’.143
On the other hand, the same scholar suggests that the nomos kakogamiou, introduced
probably as a countermeasure to property concentration, required young men not to
look for rich fiancées, but marry also women from the non-owning strata.144 All
these possibilities have to be examined, especially the last one, considering that
Plutarch remarks that it is particularly (malista) applicable to marriages with the
plousioi. From the remark of Ariston of Chios quoted by Stobaios it would appear
that according to the criterion of social damage, judged by the severity of relevant
penalties, it was precisely kakogamion that took the highest position:
Spartiatín n"moV t|ttei zhm{aV t«n m]n préthn ‡gam{ou, t«n deut}ran Óyigam{ou,
t«n tr{thn ka[ meg{sthn kakogam{ou (Stobaios, Florileg. LXVII 16).
Assuming that the severity of penalties is proportionate to the scale of the
problem, we could maintain that the danger of kakogamion was greater than of
opsigamia or agamia. Punishment for kakogamion was the most harsh because it
endangered the official equalising ideals of Sparta, and also because it could be (or
already was) the most widespread offence.
The sources do not give any information on when the fine was decreed and upon
whose initiative it was meted out. It is difficult to imagine that the fine for kakogamia
would be decreed before the gamos actually took place; similarly to opsigamia, it was
rather punished post factum. This happened in the case of King Archidamos II, fined by
the ephors for marrying a woman who was too short. The question of whether the
initiative belonged to the state or to a private person remains open.
Both demographic and social factors motivated the practices connected with
the ‘love hut’ (assuming for the moment that Hermippos’s account is credible):
ka[ g\r t\V gamet\V Ô kal'V -mín ›sti|twr špainín Êrmippon žjh šn toČV per[
Nomoqetín ÄstoreČn Őti šn Lakeda{moni eĂV oËkhm| ti skotein'n p~sai šnekle{onto
aÄ k"rai, sunegkleiom}nwn ka[ tín ‡g|mwn nean{skwn· ka[ śkastoV µV
141
Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 237.
142
143
Turasiewicz, ‘Stanowisko bezżennych w Sparcie’, 441.
144
Turasiewicz, ‘Stanowisko bezżennych w Sparcie’, 441–442.

špil|boito, ta?thn ‡p®gen proikon. di' ka[ L?sandron šzhm{wsan, Őti

katalipęn t«n prot}ran ›t}ran šboule?eto perikallest}ran ‡gag}sqai (Her-
mippos ap. Athen. 555 b-c).
For, when praising married women too, our fine host said that Hermippos records
in his On Legislators that in Lakedaimon all the girls used to be shut up in a dark
room, and all the unmarried young men were shut in with them; and each man
took whichever girl he caught, without a dowry. This was why Lysander was
punished, because he abandoned the first girl and tried to contrive to marry
a prettier one.
The procedure described by Hermippos is difficult to understand. All the
unmarried women and young bachelors were shut in the ‘love hut’. How long they
stayed there, and on what basis they formed couples, is unclear. It is not known
whether the ‘catching’ of a girl, which appears to have been the decisive
moment,145 included regular sexual intercourse, or whether the young people were
let in, the boys ‘caught’ the girls and the door was opened. Lysander abandoned
the first girl and wanted to alter his choice. Since he contemplated taking another
girl, it can be assumed that this was possible, but we do not know whether it could
be done as part of the same or a different procedure.
Few scholars believe in this ‘sexual tag’ described by Hermippos. In Turasie-
wicz’s opinion it is an ‘age-old custom’; according to him, ‘in this form of ‘courtship’
simplified by custom only the girls participated in full numbers, and of the boys
only those who were present in Sparta at the moment, which seems to be
corroborated by the word hapantes, used by the author only in reference to the
women’.146 Also MacDowell admits the potential historicity of this custom.147
The majority of scholars, however, regard this custom, for which it is
difficult to find an analogy anywhere,148 to be unhistorical.149 Firstly, the
145
‘Here the marriage evidently has taken place as soon as the young man has snatched his girl’
(Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 225).
146
‘Nasz starożytny informator nie podaje, czy do tego zwyczaju uciekano się w jakichś
regularnych odstępach czasu, np. raz do roku, czy też tylko w tym wypadku, gdy unikanie
związków małżeńskich przez młodych ludzi zaczynało przybierać niepożądane i katastrofalne
dla państwa skutki’ [Our ancient informant does not say whether this custom was resorted to
at some regular interval, e.g. once a year, or only in the periods when avoidance of marriage
ties by young men began to have undesirable or catastrophic effects on the state] (Turasiewicz,
‘Stanowisko bezżennych w Sparcie’, 438–439).
147
‘I am prepared to believe that the blind-man’s-bluff device was used on some occasions as a device
for getting the young Spartans married. But it cannot have been the invariable method of making
marriages; the passages from Herodotos show that many marriages, perhaps nearly all, were
arranged individually’ (MacDowell, Spartan Law, 80). Cf. Schmitz, Haus und Familie, 129.
148
The closest, yet still remote, analogy seems to be the Bachelor’s House (bukumatula) of the
Triobrands (B. Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, Boston 1987
[1st ed. 1929], 59–64).
149
E.g. S. Link, Der Kosmos Sparta, Darmstadt 1994, 36–37.

Ryszard Kulesza
participation of Lysander, which at the first glance might seem to substantiate the
story’s historicity, is considered to be at least doubtful.150 Secondly, this procedure
is not only not mentioned, but seems to be actually disproved by other authors.151
Also ‘the huge importance of the dowry’ appears to be an argument against the
credibility of Hermippos’s account. Besides, according to Lipka, ‘it is hard to credit
that such a form of ‘marriage at random’ could coexist together with ‘marriage by
capture’.152 Two differing traditions on the dowries in Sparta are found in the
sources:153
žsti d] ka[ tín gunaikín sced'n t®V p|shV céraV tín p}nte merín t\ d?o, tín
t’ špiklŞrwn pollín ginom}nwn, ka[ di\ t' proČkaV did"nai meg|laV (Arist. Pol.
1270a,23–5).
And almost two-fifths of the land belongs to women, because there are many
heiresses, and because large dowries are given.
Punqanom}nou d} tinoV, di\ t[ t\V k"raV šnomoq}thsen ‡pro{kouV škd{dosqai,
‘ŐpwV’ žjh ‘mŞte di’ žndeian gamo{ tineV šaqísi mŞte di\ perious{an
spoud|zwntai, śkastoV d’ eĂV t'n tr"pon t®V paid'V ‡jorín ‡retĽ t«n aÉresin
poiíntai (Plut. Mor. 227f = Apophthegmata Lakonika 227,15)154.
When someone asked why he legislated that girls should be given in marriage
without dowries, he said ‘So that none may be either left unmarried because of
poverty or sought eagerly because of affluence, but each man may concentrate his
attention on the girl’s character and make his choice on her merits’.
Aristotle’s authority seemingly clears all doubts. It may be, however, possible
that the dowry and the no-dowry systems functioned together. If polyandry
existed, the existence of the ‘love hut’ was also possible, especially since the whole
procedure was performed among the lower strata of the society. Whether a marriage
was with or without a dowry can be reasonably understood against the background
of the social differentiation in Sparta: the rich gave their daughters dowries (proikas
megalas refers to the elite), and the poor did not. In this light the objections to the
proix in the cases of the ‘love hut’ device lose their grounds. Shut in the ‘love hut’
were the surplus girls and boys from poorer families; it was a surplus which the
authorities, mindful of the demographic advantages and social order, wished to
150
Hermippos’s anecdote concerning Lysander is suspect on the grounds of chronology, unless
Lysander was married twice (J.-F. Bommelaer, Lysandre de Sparte: histoire et traditions, Paris 1981,
58); Modrzejewski, ‘La structure juridique’, 236, n. 22.
151
Cartledge, ‘Spartan Wives’, 97; Ducat, ‘La femme de Sparte’, 396, n. 46; Hodkinson, Property
and Wealth, 98; Lipka, Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, 254. See Thommen, ‘Spartanische
Frauen’, 141, n. 59.
152
‘It would be conceivable in the case of older unmarried women (but Hermippus speaks of korai
and neaniskoi!)’ (Lipka, Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, 255).
153
On contradictory references to proix, see Schmitz, Haus und Familie, 131–132.
154
See also Iust. III 3; Ael. Varia Historia VI 6 and Plut. Comp. Lyk. Num. 26,1.

turn to profit. The objective was that all the young people, regardless of their
financial status, should find partners. Some facts seem to suggest that this custom
was more in the interest of the girls than of the boys, since Hermippos clearly
states that ‘all the girls used to be shut up in a dark room’, while he does not
suggest that this concerned also all the young men. He also mentions that the girls
did not receive a dowry, which in the light of the data regarding dowries in Sparta
may mean that those were the girls who could not count on receiving any dowry.155
Spartan peculiarities
Our sources, especially Xenophon, attempt to instil in readers the conviction

that Spartan customs were radically different from those familiar from other Greek
states:
per[ m]n d« teknopoi{aV oßtw t‡nant{a gno/V toČV lloiV eË ti diaj}rontaV ka[
kat\ m}geqoV ka[ kat’ Ăsc/n ndraV tĽ Sp|rt¯ ‡pet}lesen, Ô boul"menoV
špiskope{tw (Xen. Lak. Pol. 1,10).
In these ways his decrees regarding procreation were quite different from those of
others; and anyone may judge for himself whether he managed to make the
Spartans superior in terms of stature and strength (tr. M. Lipka).
Xenophon relates the differences regarding the teknopoiia and neglects to
describe the manner of celebrating marriage, perhaps because he did not find
anything out of ordinary in it. Among the differences he mentions the frequency
of marital intercourse:
špe{ ge m«n gun« pr'V ndra žlqoi, Ôrín to/V llouV t'n príton toŢ cr"nou
‡m}trwV taČV gunaix[ sun"ntaV, ka[ to?tou t‡nant{a žgnw· žqhke g\r aĂdeČsqai
m]n eĂsi"nta Ójq®nai, aĂdeČsqai d’ šxi"nta. oßtw d] sun"ntwn poqeinot}rwV m]n
‡n|gkh sjín aŮtín žcein, šrrwmen}stera d] g{gnesqai, eË ti bl|stoi oßtw,
m~llon ł eĂ di|koroi ‡llŞlwn eÍen (Xen. Lak. Pol. 1,5).
When he saw that the others used to spend an excessive amount of time with their
wives just after they were married, he adopted a quite different custom; he laid
down that a man should be ashamed to be seen entering or leaving [sc. his wife’s
room]. Inevitably, then, they long for each other more intensely, when their contact
is limited in this way; and if a child is thus begotten it is stronger than if they were
surfeited with each other (tr. M. Lipka).
It is hard to understand how the requirement that a man should be ashamed
to be seen entering his wife’s quarters or leaving her might have been enforced in
practice. It could not have been a complete ban on marital contacts, but rather an
155
Kulesza, Sparta, 119–120.

Ryszard Kulesza
injunction to avoid ostentation. This, however, seems to have been valid in all of
Greece.156 The attitude described by Xenophon was, in general, not altogether
anomalous; what we can suspect here, at the most, is that some rules of behaviour
common to the entire Greek world were in Sparta somewhat more severe.
Conclusion
From the above analysis it appears that marriage was arranged and celebrated
in Sparta in a manner which is basically similar to that known from Athens.157 The
majority were privately arranged unions, preceded by talks and negotiations
crowned by the engye, and then by the gamos, which for Xenophon was not
different enough from the Athenian one to merit a mention. Seizure (harpage) was
an extraordinary measure, the character of which was unusual enough to draw the
attention of Plutarch, our testis unus. The existence, in some periods of Sparta’s
history, of state-arranged marriages, meant to couple the surplus young people
from less affluent families, is debatable, although possible. Other devices mentioned
in the sources (wife-sharing, polyandry) do not refer to formal nuptial rites, but
rather constitute survival strategies which ensured that a family reached its goals
concerning property and procreation.
Ryszard Kulesza
r.kulesza@uw.edu.pl
Institute of History
University of Warsaw
Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28
00-927 Warszawa, Poland
156
See e.g. Lys. III 6; I 22–23; Is. III 13, 14.
157
Which does not mean that I would like to ‘calque Spartan marriage customs on Athenian ones’
(Ogden, Greek Bastardy, 275). At the same time I do not share the view that in Sparta we are
dealing with an ‘ordinary’ marriage procedure including engye, ekdosis and synoikein in the
manner understood by Lévy, according to whom the seizure described by Plutarch is
a ‘matérialisation rituelle de l’ekdosis’ (E. Lévy, Sparte, Paris 2003, 86).

Spartan Gamos in The Classical Period

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S PARTAN GAMOS IN THE CLASSICAL

‘N ous ne savons pas si l’union matrimoniale à Sparte s’accomplissait

* I want to express my gratitude to my readers: Włodzimierz Lengauer, Andreas Luther, Misha

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 135

The betrothal and the seizure

Dik|zein d] mo?nouV to/V basil}aV tos|de moŢna· patro?cou te parq}nou p}ri,

136 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 137

138 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 139

140 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 141

‘marriage by capture’ can be interpreted – was not necessarily as evil in Sparta,

142 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

Historical analogies do not corroborate the communis opinio of the scholars

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 143

144 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 145

Despite the silence of the sources, it is difficult to find fault in the

146 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

The ‘situation matrimoniale’

Generally speaking, scholars find no trouble in determining what motives

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 147

mid-fifth-century Sparta for the growth of marriage customs aimed at concentrating

148 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

a categorical imperative to have children. This resulted from a conjunction of

eË ge m}ntoi sumba{h geraiř n}an žcein, Ôrín to/V thliko?touV jul|ttontaV

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 149

150 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

It is certain that the Spartans’ intention in introducing this solution to

Borrowing of wives was another type of survival strategy, probably in

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 151

According to Xenophon, a man who au gynaiki synoikein me bouloito could

152 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 153

154 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 155

156 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

concentrate ‘properties which would otherwise be divided’.111 According to Robin

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 157

Intervention of the state – the marriage ‘law’

In solutions described hitherto, decisions regarding marriage were left in the

‘Réflexions sur polyandrie’, 29. See L. Wierschowski, ‘Die demographisch-politischen Auswir-

158 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 159

agamion if he remained unmarried’.131 In Turasiewicz’s opinion, however, the fine

160 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 161

162 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

špil|boito, ta?thn ‡p®gen proikon. di' ka[ L?sandron šzhm{wsan, Őti

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 163

164 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

Our sources, especially Xenophon, attempt to instil in readers the conviction

PALAMEDES 3(2008) 165

166 PALAMEDES 3(2008)

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