Culture and Social Norms of the Ancient Greeks - Essay Example

The culture of the Greeks and their social norms bespeaks a vast array of ideas. Quite so, the ancient Greeks were abjectly a religious people. They worshiped many gods whom they consistently thought of as bearing human attributes and yet were bestowed with overly super strength and possessed unparalleled beauty. Earliest literature paraphernalia posit some activities of fellow men within the Greek culture interacting with different gods and goddesses who went through negligible transitions over time as cited by Saalmann, (2016). The Greek’s religion majorly entailed the presence of several deities but only allowed the domination of the cult often by one god such as Zeus. The arts then promoted the manifestation of the gods through such things as portraits, specific scenarios painted on vases and stone. Bronze sculptures represent the main gods and goddesses.

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The Greeks also promoted the culture of the funerary art which entailed the concepts of paying the ferryman to Hades with a coin the hand. The Greeks though esteemed highly of the epitaphs and animal sacrifices were commonplace. The Greeks built monuments to serve as burying sites. Furthermore, they painted the walls of the tomb places. Early Greeks were interred above the ground and marked by a significantly huge portion of pottery. The remnants were often buried in reliquaries.

The ancient Greeks related their children to being youths until the coming of the age of thirty. When a child was conceived to the old Greek family, a nude father would carry his baby, in a ritual frenzy about turn the house. The next friends and relations then sent their presents. The family adorned the threshold of their home with olives. Sparta accepted, the girls from other city states stayed at home until marriage. They did as their mothers. They helped their parents and offered assistance in the field if ever the need presented itself. The ancient Greek children indulged in such aspects as regards the playing with toys of a variable kind.

Equally striking, the ancient Greeks prided themselves on the concept of learning. The supposed objectives of education in the Greek polis were to aid in the preparation of the child for related adult activities. Apparently, different city states considered various types of training depending on the nature of the polis. Evidently, young boys stayed at home doing such things as helping out in the fields, sailing, and fishing. Then, at the ages of six and or seven, they embarked on schooling. In Sparta, both the daily lifestyle and educational aspects were varied owing to the military disposition of the Spartans than in Athens which constituted the areas of art and culture. In Sparta, the main aim rested on the notion of producing productive soldier citizens who portrayed such characters as stringent disciplinary protocols and were well-trained army personnel. Spartans relied strongly on the core tenets of discipline, selflessness, and simplicity. The boys remained ever loyal to the state. The Spartan boys joined military instead of schools at the age of six and seven. They were then imparted upon the relevant skills of warfare and survival tactics. Warfare was the order of the day. The relative pets commonly affiliated with the ancient Greeks were mainly, birds, dogs, tortoises and mice. Cats were excluded.

Gender Roles

Men were tasked with the clear gender roles appertaining to the running of the government and as such utilized the better part of their time away from their homes. Otherwise, the men obliged their strengths to the field to aid in the activities of farming, game hunting and perhaps sailing among others, when they were not handling political issues. The men enjoyed binge drinking gatherings aside from the other exhilarating actives such as wrestling, riding on horsebacks as well as the Olympic Games. During such times when the men indulged in debauchery, their wives and daughters were restricted from the attendance of such as highlighted by Thanopoulou & Tsiganou, (2016).

The women, however, with the distinct exemption of the Sparta women, were in turn, allowed limited liberty outside their homes. The rules of engagement dictated them to solely attend wedding ceremonies, funeral services, certain religious feats and could pay short visits to their female neighbors. In the home front, the Greek women had the say-so seeing as their roles bordered on the aspects of bearing children and running the houses. The Greek women were not subject to performing the house chores by themselves considering they had slaves for that. Notably, the female slaves handled the cooking, cleaning and the workings on the field. The male slaves, on the other hand, stood as watch guards whose sole obligation was to limit entry to no one when the man of the house was unavailable with the exemption of female neighbors. Also, the male slaves posed as teachers to the minor male children. The wives and daughters were banned from watching the Olympic Games because contenders were nude. Women were believed to succeed only in the game of chariot racing during which if they won, they received the prize but on a condition dictating ownership rights.

Conclusion

Suffice it to say; complete analysis appertaining to the success and failure of the ancient Greece is mainly founded on the fundamental aspects concerning the nature of the socio-politico systematic approach.

Reference

Saalmann, G. (2016). Intercultural Communication and Cosmopolitanism. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

Herzog, B. (2015). Interdisciplinary Analysis of Luhmann's Sociological Theory on the Euro-Crisis. Economics & Sociology, 8(2), 102.

Thanopoulou, M., & Tsiganou, J. (2016). Representations of gender in public rhetoric. The case of law-making on immigration in the Greek parliament. Επιθεwρηση Κοινωνικwν Ερευνwν, 117(117), 169-187.

Pleios, G. (2015). Communication and Symbolic Capitalism–Rethinking Marxist Communication Theory in the Light of the Information Society. In Marx and the Political Economy of the Media (pp. 98-137). Brill.

Nalbantoglou, S., Kyridis, A. A., & Tsioumis, K. (2015). Political Socialization in the Contemporary Greek Kindergarten Views of Kindergarten Teachers and the Readiness of Preschoolers. Journal of Education and Training, 2(2), 180-202.