... peasant women involved. Was Sparta a gyneocracy like Aristotle says? Aristotle claimed that Sparta ultimately failed (but then so did Athens) because Sparta did not control its independent women; "women love wealth and so society loves wealth and so men are ruled by women." Pointing to the reason Sparta lost to the Thebians, Aristotle claimed it was the chaotic behavior ... seventh century, b.c.e. poet from Lesbos. We know very little about her life. Presumably she was married as she had a daughter, to whom she wrote poignant poetry. Sappho's poems are primarily love poems addressed to ot...

• Word Count: 7196
• Approx Pages: 29
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... American cultures, but any similarity to modern practices is far from evident. One of the earliest explanations of homosexuality and homosexual union can be found in a section of Plato's Symposium. In this section Plato write for his friend Aristophanes, following Aristophanes myth about the origin of human beings. Aristophanes conjectures that in the beginning there were three sexes, one which was essentially two ... one androgynous form which contained a male and a female. These forms were eventually split in half by Zeus, but the lifelong search for ones missing half explains both ho...

• Word Count: 2929
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... for the other, the recurrent energy that maintains the vital tension of life. He finds an evocative allegory in mythology, in Aristophanes' tale in the Symposium of love's origin, which speaks of a primal unity of life, later splintered by the gods into difference, incompleteness, and desire: "Man's original body having ... been thus cut in two, each half yearned for the half from which it had been severed" (Plato 61). "Shall we follow the hint given us ... that primal scene of separation in a recovered memory of his own and Vaillant's departure from home, and in a language strangely s...

• Word Count: 7335
• Approx Pages: 29
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination, and it forbids reinstatement of these laws and policies. (Strasser) Sexual orientation is not a new concept. Plato alluded to the acceptance of homosexuality when he described the effectiveness and power of the "pederasty" in Symposium, "If only there were a way to start a city or an army made up of lovers and the boys they ... love! Theirs would be the best possible system of society ." (Kaplan) Plato's statement accepts homosexuality as well as describing the homosexuals as having a quality that builds strong ... activity, ...

• Word Count: 3001
• Approx Pages: 12

... debated and disregarded. It was not until the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, that priestly marriage began to decline. Besides the human need for love and companionship, one reason for priestly marriage was that it ensured succession of the priesthood to their sons. It made social sense as a means ... homosexuality, ideally as elder-to-younger lovers. Marriage, however, was a business deal; men married women to run their household, rarely for love. In 385 BC, Plato wrote in his Symposium 2: "And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lover...

• Word Count: 3999
• Approx Pages: 16
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to attend.3 Aspasia became the most famous and influential of the hetaerae. Her legacy became anything but silent and she appears in multiple historical works by Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Athenaeus, and Plutarch.4 It is clear she had an immense impact on her male counterparts, perhaps the most over her live-in ... home it broke the traditional mold. Marie Delcourt wrote in her study on Pericles, "No one would have thought the less of Pericles for making love to young boys, but they (referring to Athenian citizens) were shocked by his treating Aspasia like a human being." Delcourt goes on...

• Word Count: 2630
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography

... to attend.3 Aspasia became the most famous and influential of the hetaerae. Her legacy became anything but silent and she appears in multiple historical works by Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Athenaeus, and Plutarch.4 It is clear she had an immense impact on her male counterparts, perhaps the most over her live-in ... home it broke the traditional mold. Marie Delcourt wrote in her study on Pericles, "No one would have thought the less of Pericles for making love to young boys, but they (referring to Athenian citizens) were shocked by his treating Aspasia like a human being." Delcourt goes on...

• Word Count: 2630
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography