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In general, dowry functioned as a means of transferring and gathering property. In Athens, specifically, dowry was obligatory and was particularly burdensome for poor people, given the fact that finding a husband was a question of competition. That is why Solon's legislation abolished the institution of dowry. However, the information that we have about dowry in Archaic Athens is minimal. That is the reason why, scholars tend to adopt in principle the position of woman in the classical society for the Archaic period too. During that period the Athenian woman did not have control over her property, but was in effect epiproikos, that is she transferred it from her father to her husband. Generally, Athenian women were more confined than Spartan, Cretan or Boeotian women. |
Dowry in Sparta and Gortyn in Crete was women's property. Although we do not have information as to the power of women-wives in Gortyn, it is clear that the wives of the Lacedaemonians controlled their property.
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