In no other city in ancient Greece did women have such freedom as in ancient Sparta. Only in Sparta women had financial rights and social influence.
Girls took part in athletics and attended public schools in contrast to other cities where almost all women were uneducated. Visitors from other cities said that Spartan women not only stood up for their opinions, which they were not afraid to express publicly, but in some cases even persuaded their husbands to follow them.
In almost every other place in ancient Greece, and especially in Athens, women found themselves in the situation that exists today in underdeveloped countries. Their sole purpose was to have children with their husbands, since the sexual pleasures of men were fulfilled by prostitutes. The citizens' spouses and daughters were excluded from all public and spiritual activities, stayed in the house and could not engage in physical activity. Women could neither inherit nor own property, and it was not considered necessary to give them any kind of education.
In Sparta, the leading roles of women in society were those of wife and mother. The fathers chose the spouses for them and had neither the right to choose nor to be chosen. Nevertheless, they enjoyed such a social position and such rights that it was "scandalous" for the entire ancient world.
As Plato points out in "Protagoras", education was not purely physical. In Sparta "it was not only men but also women who were proud of their spiritual cultivation. This was more than just education. It was a systematic training in rhetorical and philosophical thought.
The men in Sparta were obliged to devote their lives to the military and other forms of social duty, and so the women took care of their husband's estate. This meant that the Spartan women controlled the family's property and so, the entire agricultural economy. The Spartan citizen was dependent on his wife's services to pay for his son's food and school fees. These economic privileges were particularly strong in Sparta, unlike cities like Athens, where it was illegal for a woman to control more money than she needed to buy a container of grain.
Aristotle claimed that "Spartans were governed by their wives" and cited Spartan freedom as one of the two reasons why the Spartan constitution was reprehensible.
When King Leonidas' wife was asked why the Spartan women were the only women in Greece who "govern their husbands" Gorgo replied, "because we are the only women who give birth to men".
The Spartan community considered the unmarried man a disgrace and that he had a lower social position than someone who had children.
