Barn i Antikens grekland

[karl_kapital]

Hej. jag skulle vilja veta lite om barnens situation i det antika Grekland. Jag hade otroligt svårt att hitta fakta på nätet, så jag undrar om någon snäll människa vet några bra länkar eller eventuellt kan plita en liten kortfattad rad,
Tack

[Gutekrigaren]

Hej!

Här är ett par länkar som kanske leder dig vidare:

http://www.hum.gu.se/~akswww/Questionbox/antique.html

http://www.hum.gu.se/~akswww/Questionbox/litt.html

Du skrev:

Hej. jag skulle vilja veta lite om barnens situation i det antika Grekland. Jag hade otroligt svårt att hitta fakta på nätet, så jag undrar om någon snäll människa vet några bra länkar

Du kanske har hört talas om böcker nån gång? Mycket bättre än Internet, på nätet kan det skrivas vad skit som helst men dåliga böcker stöts ut lättare än dåliga hemsidor. Mycket säkrare, lättare att hitta i dessutom. Gå till biblioteket!

Mvh Petter

[Dilbert]

Antar att det skilde sig en hel del mellan olika stadsstater; det rådde väl en ganska olikartad mentalitet i t.ex. Sparta och Aten, som kanske även avspeglades i synen på barnet och barndomen. Tittade lite hastigt i några böcker om det antika Grekland liksom i Philippe Ariès' bok Barndomens historia men hittade inget specifikt. Några sidor i ämnet fanns i "psykohistorikern" Lloyd deMauses The History of Childhood:

Infanticide during antiquity has usually been played down despite literally hundreds of clear references by ancient writers that it was an accepted, everyday occurrence. Children were thrown into rivers, flung into dung-heaps and cess trenches, "potted" in jars to starve to death, and exposed on every hill and roadside, "a prey for birds, food for wild beasts to rend" (Euripides, Ion, 504). To begin with, any child that was not perfect in shape and size, or cried too little or too much, or was otherwise than is described in the gynecological writing on "How to Recognize the Newborn That is Worth Rearing", was generally killed. Beyond this, the first-born was usually allowed to live, especially if it was a boy. Girls were, of course, valued little, and the instructions of Hilarion to his wife Alis (1 B.C.) are typical of the open way these things were discussed: "If, as may well happen, you give birth to a child, if it is a boy let it live; if it is a girl, expose it." /.../ The killing of legitimate children even by wealthy parents was so common that Polybius blamed it for the depopulation of Greece.

deMause menar även att barn i antikens Grekland konsekvent utsattes för sexuella övergrepp:

In Crete and Boeotia, pederastic marriages and honeymoons were common. /.../ Boy brothels flourished in every city, and one could even contract for the use of a rent-a-boy service in Athens. /.../ Aristotle's main objection to Plato's idea that children should be held in common was that when men had sex with boys they wouldn't know if they were their own sons, which Aristotle says would be "most unseemly". /.../

Aeschines quotes some of the Athenian laws which attempted to limit sexual attacks on schoolchildren:

...consider the case of the teachers... it is plain that the lawgiver distrusts them... He forbids the teacher to open the schoolroom, or the gymnastics teacher the wrestling school, before sunrise, and he commands them to close the doors before sunset; for he is exceeding suspicious of their being alone with a boy, or in the dark with him.

Aeschines, when prosecuting Timarchus for having hired himself out as a boy prostitute, put several men on the stand who admitted having paid to sodomize Timarchus. Aeschines admitted that many, including himself, were used sexually when they were children, but not for pay, which would have made it illegal.

Det kanske skall tilläggas att deMause har en mycket mörk syn på barndomens historia, och generellt menar att barn fram till vår tid ofta har dödats, övergivits, misshandlats och utnyttjats utan att det har uppfattats som särskilt uppseendeväckande. Naturligtvis är det svårt att veta hur generellt giltig en sådan beskrivning är - han skriver delvis i polemik med forskare som menar att barn var lyckligare före uppkomsten av den moderna "kärnfamiljen" - men sorglig är den förvisso.