Ancient Greek Family Structures

In the majority of Greece family was important. Having children was a very important thing for the people to do. The main reason for this is that children could keep on the family name and extend the legacy of the family. The other reason for it was self-preservation. As the parents got older their children could take care of them and make sure they died happily, whereas the person who didn’t have kids would die alone and unhappily in the cold. The husband in the marriage would work all day, either farming olive trees and grapes, or buying the farmed plants and selling them at a higher price so as to make money. The wife in the marriage would stay home all day and take care of the house and children. The children would live at home until age seven, when they started schooling. The poor children got to learn the basic things like when to plant, when to harvest what a fair price was, how to haggle, all the basic things the would need in their lives. In Sparta and a very few cities that copied it, did not take the same veiw of family as the rest of Greece. Spartans where allowed to be married and have kids, and it was encouraged like in the rest of Greece, but not for the same reasons. The only reason Spartans had kids was to increase the size of the armies they had. In Sparta the government and army were the most important things in life. Because Sparta wanted to invade and conquer the world they did not want a strong family, because the soldiers would desert and run away to another city with their family, so Sparta weakened the family. Sparta made laws that forced all couples and married couples to never be seen together in public. They also made a law that all men had to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the military mess halls. Another law the government made was that all children had to leave home and start military training at the age of seven, and once they left they might not ever see their parents again. Those were the two main family structures in ancient Greece.