Life and Work of Elinor Ostrom free essay sample

She believed that instead of privatization or government involvement, it is better for a country to have common pooled ownership of natural resources, with the assumprion that decision-making process is transparent and democratic. Her studies â€Å"showed that when individuals have to answer for their actions to others depending on the same resources, ex. fishing grounds or common pastures, their approach to shared responsibility changes. Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations and that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization. (nobelprize. org) In her late life she worked as Distinguished Professor at Indiana University Bloomington, where in 1973 together with her husband Vincent Ostrom, founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. In addition to her positions at Indiana University, she also works as Research Professor and founding director of the Center for the Study of Instit utional Diversity at Arizona State University. We will write a custom essay sample on Life and Work of Elinor Ostrom or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In 1963, Elinor Ostrom had a successful marriage with Vincent Ostrom. Together they made numerous contributions to the field of political science as co-worker.. Elinor passed away in june 2012 in Bloomington at the age of 78 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, just two weeks after his husband’s death. After Elinor Ostrom’s death, Lauren Robel, IU Bloomington provost and university executive vice president said that â€Å"Beyond her incredible achievements as a scholar, she was also remarkable for her humility, kindness and boundless curiosity. Although she will be deeply missed, we take comfort in knowing that her work on the campus will carry on through the Workshop that now bears her and Vincents names. † Early Life and Education Elinor Ostrom, was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 7, 1933, as Elinor Claire Awan. She was the only child of a poor family. Her mother, Leah (born Hopkins) was a protestant woman, while her father Adrian Awan was a jewish man. Things in the family got even worst when her father left her mother and Elinor had to spend a lot of time with her father’s sister, attendint the protestant church. Elinor grew up during the Great Depression. Her family managed to live by planting vegetable garden and fruit trees in the backyard. She grew up learning †how to grow vegetables and how to can apricots and peaches during the heat of summer. (nobelprize. org) During World War II, Elinor learned how to knit scarves for the boys overseas. About her early years, Elinor Ostrom said that My childhood was spent learning and doing the traditional activities of a girl during the last century. My major recreational activity was swimming, and I eventually joined a swimming team and sw am competitively until I started teaching swimming to earn funds that I could save to help put me through college†. (nobelprize. org) As her family’s house was situated in Beverly Hills, she attended the Beverly Hills High School, where she graduated in 1951. Here, trying to overcome her speech impediment she attended the debate team and took part to various speech contests all around the state. Elinor said that „Learning debate was an important early impact on my ways of thinking. You are taught that there are always at least two sides to public policy questions, and you have to learn a good argument for both sides as well as knowing how to critique both sides. Participating in team efforts including my debating experience and being on a swimming team was also important. † (nobelprize. org)) Being a poor kid in a rich kids’ school was tough, but it gave her better future perspective. As it was perfectly normal for Beverly Hills students to go to college after graduating, Elinor took it as a must. Even though she was the first in her immediate family going to college, and she got no support from her mother she decided to study political sciences at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she graduated with honors in 1954. Without any financial support, she managed to finish college without any debt by working in the library, in a bookstore and in a dime store. Therefore, she had a big advantage as the tuition fees al UCLA was extremely low in that time period. After graduating, in a time period when women were seen more suitable working as a secretary, or as a teacher, she obtained a position of Assistant Personnel Manager for a business firm in Boston that had never hired a woman in anything but a secretarial position. It gave her hope and courage, and 3 years after she went back to UCLA. â€Å"Then I decided I would take one course a semester and get my masters of public administration,† she says, â€Å"and I got trapped. My courses were so fascinating that I decided to quit my full-time job and go back to graduate school, at a time when women didnt go to graduate school. In 1961, in her graduate work she took part in a research team with Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren, studying the water industry in Southern California. She had to study the West Basin, and without realising she went into studying a common-pool resource problem. In this way, in 1962 she was awarded an M. A. by UCLA Department of Political Scie nces. About her Ph. D. admission Elinor Ostrom said that â€Å"My initial discussions with the Economics Department at UCLA about obtaining a Ph. D. in Economics were, however, pretty discouraging. I had not taken mathematics as an undergraduate primarily because I had been advised as a girl against taking any courses beyond algebra and geometry in high school. While the Economics Department encouraged me to take an outside minor in economics for my Ph. D. , they discouraged any further thinking about doing a Ph. D. in economics. [ ] I was, however, admitted in a class of 40 students with three other women. † (nobelprize. org)\ In 1965 she got her Ph. D. from UCLA Department of Political Science, and her Ph. D. and her dissertation thesis was called â€Å"Public Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Ground Water Basin Management†. Her „dissertation research on Los Angeles West Basin groundwater resource introduced Ostrom to the study of common-pool resources, in which multiple users have access and potentially compete for a limited supply of goods or services. † (newsinfo. iu. edu) In the same year she got her Ph. D. , her husband accepted a job offer from Indiana University’s Department of Political Science. This is how in 1965, she and Vincent moved in Bloomington, Indiana, where she started †looking for her own employment at the university and notes it was fortunate that Indiana University did not have any nepotism rules as in the University of California system. (ncbi. nlm. nih. gov) Career After moving in Bloomington, Indiana, she started her teaching career together with her husband, but it was harder for her to get the job. †I tagged along as it was very hard for any department to hire a woman in those days. Fortunately, the Department of Political Science later needed som eone to teach Introduction to American Government on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings at 7:30 a. m. They appointed me as a Visiting Assistant Professor to do that. Maybe one of her most famous books is Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action  (1990) where she develops a series of empirical studies of groundwater basins to provide a â€Å"broader theory of institutional arrangements related to the effective governance and management of common-pool resources† (p. xiv). In the very beginning of the book she sets out three models often used to provide a foundation for recommending state or market solutions. These 3 models are: * Hardin’s tragedy of the commons t refferss to the general problem of overpopulation * the prisoners’ dilemma model it reffers to people’s willingness to commit themselves to a cooperative strategy for better payoffs rather than they themselves will do * Olson’s logic of collective action a theory of collective inaction where she focus more on those who do not participate in collective actions regarding the commons 2. Early work Ostroms early work emphas ized the role of public choice on decisions influencing the production of public goods and services. As she arrived at Indiana University in 1965, the first project she started working on was about the examination of an urban common resource of high importance for the community: the police. The project started modestly, but Ostrom worked for about 15 years on it, but her research †revealed several important conceptual processes of urban policing and turned widely held presumptions on their head †. †The first 15 years of my research career at Indiana University were focused on studying police industries across the United States†, she said. In this research she said that they never found in any metropolitan aera in the entire USA a police department of more than 100 oficers able to outperform a smallor or medium-size police department when about public services such as patrol, criminal investigation, or traffic control. 3. Later work Her later, and more famous, work focused on how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. Elinor Ostrom said that †After fifteen years of extensive research on police industry structure and performance, I returned to studying the commons, but this time with the recognition of what I was studying. The National Research Council created a special committee in the mid-1980s to review the empirical research written about common-pool resources†. Her research has considered how societies have developed diverse institutional arrangements for managing natural resources and avoiding ecosystem collapse. Ostrom and her many co-researchers have developed a comprehensive Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework. All these assumptions were based on †extensive field research experience in Nepal, Nigeria, and Kenya and research visits to Australia, Bolivia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, and Zimbabwe. , but also in countries as Norway, Sweden, Poland or California. (Elinor ostrom’s CV) Nobel Prize Source:www. nobelprize. org /nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ostrom. html The 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prize for Economic Sciences was basically concerned about where best to conduct transactions; * in the open market, within firms, * or among self-regulating groups of individuals In 2009 the economic prize was divided equally between Elinor Ostrom, for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons, and the american economist Oliver E. Williamson  for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm. (nobelprize. org) . 1. Small review of Elinor Ostrom research The  Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences  awarded Ostrom as her research had shown how groups of people can successfully manage common property they all take advantage of. Her extensive research was showing the contrast between 2 entities as illustrated in the picture below: She found that those who are better at regulating those resources are those with a vested interest in the resources they manage rather than the publicly-appointed management bodies would be. Best sollution!!! Her research reveals that in many, but not all, cases, allowing users to develop their own rules to regulate the use of common property results in the most efficient solution for managing those resources. †For instance, her studies of the lobster fisheries off the coast of Maine in the United States show that self-imposed rules can often be better, and better-followed, than imposed ones. In short, self-governance can be successful. Her work incorporates both case studies of numerous real-life examples and laboratory experiments testing the ways people interact. The experiments reveal that people seem more willing to regulate others behaviour than predicted, and also that the development of efficient rules for regulation depends critically on good communication between the people involved. † (nobelprize. org) 2. Prize lecture Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize lecture called †Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems† sums up all her intellectual journey, starting with 1950s when she tried to understand the polycentric water industry in California. She conducted several studies with her husband Vincent Ostrom and Charles Tiebout, trying to solve the †problem of an overdrafted groundwater basin on the coast and watching saltwater intrusion threaten the possibility of long-term use. † (ncbi. nlm. nih. gov) Later on, in the 1970s she took part to the polycentric police industries serving U. S. metropolitan areas areas to find that the dominant theory underlying massive reform proposals was incorrect. These early empirical studies, lead later on to the development of 409 case studies on common-pool resource systems around the world. In this way, †large studies of irrigation systems in Nepal and forests around the world challenge the presumption that governments always do a better job than users in organizing and protecting important resources. † (elinorostrom. indiana. edu) Elinor Ostrom’s prize lecture is divided in different parts as following: 1. The Earlier World View of Simple Systems It reflects the mid-twentieth century general trend to †fit the world into simple models and to criticize institutional arrangements that did not fit †. It had 3 basic assumptions: a. Two Optimal Organizational Forms: The marker A single governmental unit b. Two Types of Goods: Pure private goods: are both excludableand rivalrous Public goods: are both nonexcludable and nonrivalrous c. One Model of the Individual: The general assumption accepted in economical research and game theory that all individuals are fully rational. 2. Early Efforts to Develop a Fuller Understanding of Complex Human Systems It reflects the mid-twentieth general view of symple system adapted and transformed as a result of empirical research and development of game-theory models by: a. Studying Polycentric Public Industries with special regards to the way citizens, local public entrepreneurs, and public officials engage in various ways of providing, producing, and managing public service industries b. Doubling the Types of Goods by studying how people cope with public problems in the world. The figure below †provides an overview of four broad types of goods that differentially affect the problems individuals face in devising institutions to enable them to provide, produce, and consume diverse goods†. (nobelprize. org) Keep in mind that every broad type of good contains many subtypes of goods thay may duffer. As an example, a river and a forest are both common resources, but they differ from a lot of points of view such as the mobility or time for regeneration. 3. Developing a Framework for Analyzing the Diversity of Human Situations As we can see in the picture below Elinor Ostrom developed set of †external variables that conduct to an action situation to generate patterns of interactions and outcomes that are evaluated by participants in the actionsituation (and potentially by scholars) and feed back on both the externalvariables and the action situation. 4. Are Rational Individuals Helplessly Trapped in Social Dilemmas? In this chapter Elinor Ostrom tries to figure out to what extent the rational individuals act rational and how they manage to solve the classical dilemmas such as the overharvesting of common-pool resources and the underprovision of local public. This analysis propose to perceive the human beings and the way they act as being trapped inside perverse situations. A suggestive ilustration of people social dillemas is availavle below. The topic is largely developped in chapter 7. 5. Conducting Experiments to Study Common-Pool Resource Problems †Experiments on CPRs and public goods have shown that many predictions of the conventional theory of collective action do not hold. More cooperation occurs than predicted, â€Å"cheap talk† increases cooperation,and subjects invest in sanctioning free-riders. † (nobelprize. org) 6. Studying Common-Pool Resource Problems in the Field Having conducted a lot of empirical research, this part reffers to the pragmatic field study. Getting the opportunity to visit Nepal in 1988, she found a maintained irrigation system and some government-constructed and managed system. She developped a great case study about her research in Nepal, but this is only one exemple out of hundreds studies and observations in the field. She also conducted research in India, Sri Lanka, and Japan. 7. Current Theoretical Developments Ostrom identified eight design principles of stable local common pool resource (CPR) management as follows: 1. Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties); 2. Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions; 3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process; 4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators; 5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules; 6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access; 7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; 8. In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level In theory, thinks would go well if everybody would follow some simple rules. People,are using rules they learned that work relatively well in a particular situation. They also learn norms, which are internal assumptions. In her theoretical research, Elinor Ostrom assumes that people are more effective if they count in internal values and norms than external imposed rules. 8. Complexity and Reform In her last chapter of her prize lecture, Elinor Ostrom points out that people have to be willing to deal with complexity instead of rejecting it. Both eaconomical and social sciences developped a lot during the last decades and people have to be open to changes. She believed that people are not aware on new discoveries made in the field, and there are still many common properties badly managed by public governance just because of people’s unawareness and ignorance. Conclusion To sum up Elinor Ostrom’s research work, after her death, Wyn Grant. rofessor in the Department Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick appreciates that she was †A former president of the American Political Science Association, who worked across different disciplines in the social sciences and also influenced work in the physical sciences relating to environmental management. † (blogs. lse. ac. uk ) As mentioned before, her entire research activity can be divide d in 2 parts: 1. Early work where she mainly concentrated on the role of public choice on decisions influencing the production of public goods and services. Here we took the example of the 15 years long research project â€Å"studying police industries across the United States†. 2. Later work that was better appreciate where she focused on how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. In this time period, together with her co-researchers developed a Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework, based on †extensive field research experience in Nepal, Nigeria, and Kenya and research visits to Australia, Bolivia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, and Zimbabwe. , but also in countries as Norway, Sweden, Poland or California. Just a few of some most important discoveries Elinor Ostrom made are pointed out as following: * Most efficient sollution when managing the commons: allowing users to develop their own rules to regulate the use of common property! * Principles, not rules!!! Self-imposed rules can often be better-followed, than imposed ones, as it makes people act more respon sible * She also appreciates that †The most important lesson for public policy nalysis derived from the intellectual journey I have outlined is that humans have a morecomplex motivational structure and more capability to solve social dilemmas than posited in earlier rational-choice theory† .

Right Field essays

Right Field essays Many Americans today have totally differing views on the moral aspects of their societies. Politics has taken an aggressive role in determining what people see as right, what others see wrong, and what some people could care less about. Either way each individual has his or her own ideology. An ideology is a person's belief on the values of the government in which they are under. Four basic ideologies are liberalism, socialism, libertarianism, and the most ethical idea of them allconservatism. Conservatism is the belief that government should have limited power and that citizens should have rights to private property and free enterprise. (Burns et al 246) Conservatism also encourages ideas such as pro-life and discourage ideas such as gun control, pornography, and homosexuality. Overall, conservatism is the most constructive and moral system of belief in America today. The other three ideologies, however, tend to lack the moral and ethical values which conservatism sustains. Liberalism views the government as the "control center" of America, leaving citizens with minimal power. Liberalism also, unlike conservatism, condones pro-choice, gun control, special rights for homosexual individuals, as well as a various array of other morally compromising ideas. In socialism, the government is believed to be the only power. Socialists want the government to totally support the citizens, which gives the citizens no choice of their own. This ideology is most commonly connected to the viewpoint that Karl Marx strongly believed in. Libertarianism, on the other hand, seeks extremely limited governmental power, thus proposing a hint of anarchism. Although each of these three other ideologies has some traits in common with conservatism, they all lack the ethics which conservatism possesses. Liberalism and conservatism are considered to be rivals because each ideology tends to deal with issues on opposing sides of t ...

Viet Minh Definition

Viet Minh Definition The Viet Minh was a Communist guerrilla force founded in 1941 to fight against the joint Japanese and Vichy French occupation of Vietnam during World War II. Its full name was Viá »â€¡t Nam à Ã¡ »â„¢c Lá º ­p à Ã¡ »â€œng Minh Há »â„¢i, which literally translates as the League for Viet Nams Independence. Who Were the Viet Minh? The Viet Minh was an effective opposition to Japans rule in Vietnam, although they were never able to dislodge the Japanese. As a result, the Viet Minh received aid and support from a variety of other powers, including the Soviet Union, Nationalist China (the KMT), and the United States. When Japan surrendered at the end of the war in 1945, Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnams independence. Unfortunately for the Viet Minh, however, the Nationalist Chinese actually accepted Japans surrender in northern Vietnam, while the British took the surrender in southern Vietnam. The Vietnamese themselves did not control any of their own territories. When the newly-free French demanded that its allies in China and the U.K. hand back control of French Indochina, they agreed to do so. Anti-Colonial War As a result, the Viet Minh had to launch another anti-colonial war, this time against France, the traditional imperial power in Indochina. Between 1946 and 1954, the Viet Minh used guerrilla tactics to wear down French troops in Vietnam. Finally, in May of 1954, the Viet Minh scored a decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu, and France agreed to withdraw from the region. Viet Minh Leader Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Minh leader, was very popular and would have become the president of all of Vietnam in free and fair elections. However, in negotiations at the Geneva Conference in the summer of 1954, the Americans and other powers decided that Vietnam should be temporarily divided between north and south; the Viet Minh leader would be empowered only in the north. As an organization, the Viet Minh were beset by internal purges, plummeting popularity due to a coercive land reform program, and a lack of organization. As the 1950s progressed, the Viet Minh party disintegrated. When the next war against the Americans, variously called the Vietnam War, the American War, or the Second Indochina War, broke out into open fighting in 1960, a new guerrilla force from southern Vietnam dominated the Communist coalition. This time, it would be the National Liberation Front, nicknamed the Viet Cong or Vietnamese Commies by anti-communist Vietnamese in the south. Pronunciation: vee-yet meehn Also Known As: Viet-Nam Doc-Lap Dong-Minh Alternate Spellings: Vietminh Examples After the Viet Minh expelled the French from Vietnam, many officers at all levels in the organization turned against one another, sparking purges that greatly weakened the party at a crucial time.

Advances in imaging and minimally invasive surgery Essay

Advances in imaging and minimally invasive surgery - Essay Example Patients can leave the hospital right after the surgery and return to their normal activities. This is more convenient than going to the conventional open surgery. In minimally invasive surgery, special medical instruments may be used, such as highly special optic cables, miniature endoscope cameras and special surgical instruments placed in tubes inserted into the body through small incisions. Internal images of the interior of the body are transmitted to a video monitor. Through it, the surgeon can identify the internal features, and do surgical operations if needed. Recently, optical engineering and imaging technology make it even more possible to visualize the manipulation of tissues. It can even reach to remote internal locations which is difficult during the former and traditional procedures (Boppart   A., Deutsch F. and Rattner  D. W., 1987). Technology has become more sophisticated most especially in helping the doctors and surgeons to locate tumors from different areas of the body internally. With these, it will be more helpful for them to explore the whole body and to get more precise diagnosis. It enhances internal navigation for surgeons and simultaneously record findings. Several medical instruments and ultrasound devices are used in minimally invasive technology. The purpose is to get images from the internal organs in order to point out the possible internal problems and provide the most accurate explanations. Dr. Stephen Smith, of the Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering said that their ultrasound device could really advance the use of minimally invasive technology. Their team first developed the three dimensional ultrasound scanners in 1987 in acquiring images of the heart. What they could provide is not simply two dimensional images but more detailed three dimensional images. He provides the comparison between the more advance imaging technologies than

Managment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Managment - Essay Example In simple words, sustainability aims to combat with the latest challenges by allocating the resources and energies for the short term period without putting the future developments into jeopardy. Thus, sustainability is basically seen by neoclassical economists as a problem of managing a nation’s portfolio of capital to maintain it at a constant level, either in toto or per capita. It includes natural capital, in principle, but it also allows for virtually unlimited substitution between man-made and natural capital (Pearce et al., 1990: quoted in Ayers 2000 2). Hence, sustainability looks into the canvas of business environment with a larger and long term perspective. However, it does not mean that it absolutely nullifies the long-term planning. On the contrary, it works out on current corporate scenario in such a dedicated way, by exercising best of skills and proficiencies that it indirectly creates long-term shareholder value by increasing opportunities and minimizing risk factors for the future years to come. Sustainability is essentially the continuity of the satisfaction regarding the fulfillment of basic needs; the same can be witnessed by elaborating the concept within corporate point of view, where it is actually the strategy devised and articulated to keep the ball of commercial activities rolling. The analysts divide sustainability into two different levels, which include weak and strong sustainability. Weak sustainability is the idea that natural capital can be used up as long as it is converted into manufactured capital of equal value. On the other hand, strong sustainability is the idea that there are certain functions that the environment performs that cannot be duplicated by humans.(Hart, Maureen 1998 3) In other words, the theorists argue that different forms of capital can be utilized by converting it from natural form into manufactured capital form. Consequently, weak sustainability measures the value of natural objects, beauties and c apital within a monetary perspective without taking into account its worthwhile status as the pure object of nature. For instance, mountains offer countless beauties and finances are generated from the tourists and visitors. Additionally, there are countless natural products that could be obtained from mountains and hills. However, the weak sustainability mere calculates the gains that could be generated by turning the hilly areas into plains. Thus, the narrow-sightedness of the notion appears to be unable to provide an in-depth analysis of the objects of nature and mistakenly regard them as the wastage of resources out of which huge money could be generated. Similarly, a forest full of trees contains the worth quite different from the estimation made by an entrepreneur. A value can be calculated if you assume that all the trees are cut down and turned into furniture or paper. However, the forest provides a home for wildlife that provides food for hunters. It also provides a place f or hikers to enjoy the natural environment. (Hart, Maureen 1998 5) On the other hand, strong sustainability refutes the very idea that natural capital are substitute to one another and hence can be estimated in terms of materialistic and

Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal Essay -- Jonathan Swift’s A Modest

Jonathan Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Jonathan Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal,† published in 1729, Swift engages in an extraordinary amount of irony and satire. Swift states that in order to reduce famine in Ireland and to solve the problems that they are having that eating children would be a good solution. This is not the purpose of Swift’s essay. The real intent was to get the people of Britain to notice that the ideas that they were coming up with were not any better than his satirical one, and new ideas and efforts needed to come forth in order to solve the problem.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Swift stresses that it is hard for mothers to provide for their children and it is not getting any easier. He feels that this is due to an overpopulation and lack of food. It is hard enough for these mothers to... Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal Essay -- Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Jonathan Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Jonathan Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal,† published in 1729, Swift engages in an extraordinary amount of irony and satire. Swift states that in order to reduce famine in Ireland and to solve the problems that they are having that eating children would be a good solution. This is not the purpose of Swift’s essay. The real intent was to get the people of Britain to notice that the ideas that they were coming up with were not any better than his satirical one, and new ideas and efforts needed to come forth in order to solve the problem.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Swift stresses that it is hard for mothers to provide for their children and it is not getting any easier. He feels that this is due to an overpopulation and lack of food. It is hard enough for these mothers to...

The Role of Women in Spartan Society

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN SPARTAN SOCIETY The women of ancient Sparta, those who were born to Spartan parents, had many roles. They were very important and essential for the stability and running of the ancient warrior society. The woman’s role in Spartan society was highly regarded by the state as equal in importance to that of a man’s, but they could not rule or hold public office. They were given the freedom, power, respect and status that was unheard of in the other polis, along with the rest of the classical world.Since the time of Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, the women of Sparta were very much aware of their role in society. These roles were in regards to motherhood, ownership and maintenance of land, religion, education, marriage and their strong influence and power in society. In Xenophon’s explanation of the Spartan constitution, the central and most important role in Spartan society for the Spartiate or free woman was to continue Sparta, through childbirt h. Spartan women were highly valued as the mothers of warriors and they had to maintain their fitness to ensure healthy pregnancy and childbirth.Since Sparta was regularly at war for much of its five hundred year history, it was a woman’s role to bear and rear healthy children, in particular, strong and brave sons to serve in the Spartan army. Females were encouraged to participate in physical training so that they could give birth o healthy babies. According to Xenophon, Lycurgus decreed that â€Å"women should take as much trouble over physical fitness as men†¦ on the grounds that if both parents were strong, the offspring would be more sturdy and the women themselves would be able to bear the pains of labour. The role of motherhood was so important that mothers who had numerous sons were given special status and according to Xenophon, â€Å"Spartans value motherhood so highly that there were only two ways a Spartan would receive their name on a gravestone: death in battle or death in childbirth. † Women were responsible for bringing up their children in their early years where both girls and boys received a public education. Mothers were responsible for communicating the Spartan values to their children. They encouraged bravery in their sons and did not tolerate cowardice in battle or mourn their sons when they died in battle.Rather than mourn the death of their son, they would take pride in the fact that their son died in defence of Sparta – Source 1 (Plutarch On Sparta, p. 160) â€Å"As a woman was burying her son, a worthless old crone came up to her and said: ‘You poor woman, what a misfortune! ’ ‘No, by the two gods, a piece of good fortune,’ she replied, ‘because I bore him so that he might die for Sparta, and that is what has happened. † To die for Sparta in battle was a man’s highest honour and what a mother dreams of for her sons.Therefore, the pride of a Spartan woman was to be a mother of a truly courageous and dutiful son – Source 2 (Plutarch On Sparta, p. 160) â€Å"When an Ionian woman was priding herself on one of the tapestries she had made (which was indeed of great value), a Spartan woman showed off her four most dutiful sons and said they were the kind of thing a noble and good woman ought to produce, and should boast of them and take pride in them. † Spartan mothers were not tolerant to a son’s act of cowardice or unworthiness towards her and Sparta. They were known to shame and kill their sons when they displayed these actions.For example, a quote from Plutarch’s Sayings of Spartan Women shows just this. Another Spartan woman killed her son, who had deserted his post because he was unworthy of Sparta. She declared: â€Å"He was not my offspring†¦ for I did not bear one unworthy of Sparta. † (Blundell, 1995, 151 & 157; Pomeroy, 2002, 34-37 & 52-69 – Don’t know who said what, notes given fro m a uni student. ) Spartan women were known to be wealthy although Sparta did not have a coinage system and women were not allowed to possess gold or silver. This wealth was known to have been acquired from property ownership.Land ownership in Sparta was different from other polis. A family’s land was shared between all members of the family, including the girls but their percentage was smaller than her brother’s. At the beginning of the classical period, a Spartan woman could inherit part of her family’s estate but she never owned it, it was always passed on to her children. This changed and towards the end of the classical period, Xenophon and Aristotle noted that women did own and could manage, control, and dispose of property without the need of male approval.Women could also acquire land through marriage says Powell, Athens and Sparta. Aristotle indicated that women owned two-fifths of the land near the end of the classical period. With the women owning thi s much land and the men were constantly away training or at war, they played very important roles in the management of the household and the kleros. They had to supervise the helots who worked in the house and kleros because they did not perform domestic duties or manual labour, an act which was seen only fit for helots.If a woman was married, any profit from her estate was her husband’s profit too and the same goes for any profit from the estate of her husband’s. If a married couple were to divorce, which was very rare, women were allowed to keep their estates. Women were encouraged to be skilled and knowledgeable with horses so they could ride out to supervise theirs and their husband’s estates which could have been spread out over a vast amount of area. Therefore, Spartan women usually owned, bred and trained fine horses which served as an example of their wealth in land. Blundell, 1995, 155-157; Pomeroy, 1975, 38; Pomeroy, 1991, 144; Pomeroy, 2002, 19-34 & 7 6-86 – Don’t know who said what, notes given from a uni student. ) Women also played an important role in religion. According to S. B. Pomeroy, Spartan cults for women mirrored the society’s emphasis on female beauty, health and most of all, fertility, being prominent in the cults of Dionysus, Eileithyia and Helen. During religious festivals, such as the Hyporchema and the Caryatid, women would sing, dance, race, feast, dedicate votive offerings, drive chariots in processions and weave clothing for cult images of the gods, said Pomeroy.At the Hyakinthia festival, women played a part in â€Å"riding on richly decorated carriages made of wicker work, while others yoked chariots and drove them in a procession for racing† says Hooker in The Ancient Spartans. At the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, a large number of votive offerings have been found. It is thought that these offerings were made by women who were barren, pregnant or had survived childbirth, as Artem is Orthia was associated with childbirth. Also, Spartan mothers made offerings and sacrifices to the goddess Aphrodite Hera when their daughters got married.In addition, Pomeroy stated that sundry votive offerings by individual women were evidences of other personal relationships with the divinities. In figure 3. 9 in the book Antiquity 2, there is a 5th century relief showing a Spartan girl involved a religious rite. From early childhood, girls were raised to be the kind of mothers that Sparta required, just as boys were trained to be the soldiers it needed. The Spartan education system that was devised for girls was to create mothers who would produce the best hoplites, to manage property and to participate in religious festivals.Girls stayed at home with their mothers who taught them the basics of reading and writing. Since music was an important part of Sparta’s religious festivals, the girls had to learn to sing and perform dances such as the bibasis, which was also a fo rm of exercise. Sparta was the only polis where the training of girls was prescribed and supported by public authority. The girl’s physical education involved, â€Å"running, wrestling, discus throwing, and hurling the javelin†, as accounted by Plutarch.The main reason why girls participated in physical activities was to serve the state purpose of giving birth to strong and healthy children, on the basis that both parents were strong and healthy, according to Barrow and Powell. (Blundell, 1995, 151; Fantham, 1994, 57-63; Pomeroy, 1975, 36; Pomeroy, 2002, 4-27 – Don’t know who said what, notes given from a uni student. ) According to Plutarch, unlike girls from other polis, Spartan girls married when â€Å"they were ripe for it†, probably around the age of eighteen when they were more physically mature and ready for motherhood.Spartans were expected to marry within their own social class and was generally arranged between families, with the bride an d groom usually knowing each other beforehand. Another form of marriage that was believed to have been practiced in Sparta was marriage by capture. This occurred when a man would choose a bride and carry her off. Although it sounds like the bride had no choice in who she would marry, A. J. Ball suggests that the act of â€Å"capture† was purely a symbolic act. Plutarch states that the bride was dressed like a male with her hair shaved off in preparation for the marriage.Some suggestions why this procedure was undertaken were because it implied chastity, and to â€Å"ease† the groom into unfamiliar grounds to have sexual intercourse with a woman since he spent the majority of his time with other men. Trial marriages were also practised in Sparta. It was not unusual for a married couple to keep their marriage a secret until the birth of their first child, just in case the wife was barren and so a new marriage contract could be arranged. The Spartan society had an open mi nded attitude towards extramarital relations, provided that it was to produce more children.It was acceptable for an older man with a young wife to give permission for a younger man to have sexual intercourse with her provided that they produce more physically fit children. Also, according to Xenophon, if a man wanted to have children but did not want to get married, he could ask permission from another man if he could share his wife sexually. There were no indications that women made objections or complaints to such arrangements. Married Spartan women had significantly more influence and power in society than other women from other polis.It is thought that they obtained all this influence and power as a result of their wealth, the constant absences of their husbands and an educational system that encouraged them to speak out and express themselves. However, their authority was more social and not political. They were restricted from voting and could not hold governmental positions, even though they made up the majority of Spartiates. It is thought that they did, nevertheless, give their opinions on public matters. They were known to be unbelievably straight talking and dominated their husbands in the household.According to Plutarch, â€Å"When a woman from Attica asked ‘Why is it that you Spartans are the only women who can rule men? ’ Gorgo replied, ‘Because we are the only ones who give birth to men. ’† Another way females in Sparta practiced their authority was during festivals, where girls would sing songs of praises for Spartan boys who deserved them. They would cheer for the winners and mock the losers of competitions which influenced the boys to strive for excellence. According to S. Blundell, â€Å"Females in Sparta were so thoroughly indoctrinated that they formed an effective branch of a state propaganda machine. A shrine of one of Sparta’s most famous women, Cynisca, who had been hailed as a hero for her equ estrian victories, was centrally located in Sparta. This further emphasises how much power and influence they had. Aristotle was critical of the wealth, power and influence women exercised in Sparta because he felt that it strongly contributed to Sparta’s ultimate downfall. (Blundell, 1995, 155-157; Pomeroy, 1991, 144-149; Pomeroy, 2002, 56-93 – Don’t know who said what, notes given from a uni student. ) In conclusion, the role of Spartan women in society was of great importance.They not only played a vital role in the economy, religion, education and public matters, they were the backbone of the entire Spartan race. Without the women playing their role in society, Sparta would not have been the once mighty and great polis as we know it today. Bibliography Hurley, T. , Medcalf, P. , Murray, C. and Rolph, J. 2008, Antiquity 2, Oxford University Press : Victoria. Stevens, V. , Merchant, W. , Hampson, M. and Bradshaw. G. 2006, HSC Ancient History, Macmillan Educati on Australia : South Yarra. Pomeroy, S. B. 2002, Spartan Women, Oxford University Press : New York Jovy Celestino