Just thank you. I've dumped a lot of words in your comment section, but I just had to. I really did. I am so sick of the "millennia of oppression of women who were treated like chattel" narrative, and it's nice to see someone actually speak knowledgeably on the subject of historical female power. I have had feminists tell me that the relationship between man and wife was that of master and slave, and I'm sorry, that's just not how it was.
Karen Straughan, just passing by to say that the only living person I respect more than you is that one retired battle veteran that decided to go back to war-torn countries and set up an independent mercenary group with the sole purpose of rescuing and saving children from war and violence. I wish feminists took you as a role model.
karen straughan All right. I can buy that there is historical evidence that disproves the idea of millennia of oppression that women suffered. Now, can you find any way to get that information to a group of people that will actively fight to ignore it? This is a problem that I think is perhaps intractable. The ones that need to be convinced aren't the ones in the center already, or those willing to listen to reason and be convinced of the facts. They are, instead, those that hold a singular opinion who will not step even far enough away to ask "is what I was taught really true". Worse, I'm coming to the conclusion that the people that hold different opinions most strongly are often driven tot hat position by biological factors. One such case is the fact that conservatives tend to be both more fearful and less intelligent than their Liberal counterparts. To that end they become afraid of everything and resist change, since that would mean making a mentally stressful adaptation. Liberals have their own issues, some of which, at the extremes of liberal and authoritarian (SJW, Intersectionalists/Rad Fems) seem to be nearly identical cause, if not response, to that of the right wing. This being the case, it may not be possible to change any minds on almost any topic, unless you are dealing with people that already fit a ready made template that would allow for the conversion. So, do you think that it's possible to reach those doing the most harm and damage and change their minds using information? I have to wonder if restating things to fit a fear based, but different model, would work for some of them? Perhaps letting Feminists understand that their positions built to harm and undermine men are harming themselves? Still, I doubt they could hear that over the screams of patriarchy!
I believe it was said very well in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" The man, is the head, but the woman is the neck. And the she can turn the head, any way she wants.
Yes. Any head that didnt turn didnt get to make more heads until you got this situation where all the heads are turning. Its a form of survival bias i guess, on a genetic level, evolution at work. If you fight it you get erased. There are no winners in this story, except life.
@Jimmy you never had a sore neck and couldn't turn your head the way you want? When your body isn't functioning properly, it doesn't really matter what the head wants, the body dictates what happens.
@@jonsimpson6240 Overall, the head is in control. But there are sporadic moments where it isnt (like the example you just said). Same can be applied to men and women.
@@dELTA13579111315 his older videos are mostly shorter. I guess after a while he just gave up on trying to stop himself of going on one tangent after another.
The thing people forget when analyzing cultures in the women are not 15-35 the childbearing years the whole time. 35-75 a mature woman is going to be a bigger part of her life. Most of the influence is going to be then. Arranging marriages dealing with finances, solving disputes, serving as an intermediary to her husband or running the show after he has passed on. Women not only usually decide which genes are getting passed on but what culture is being passed on. Because they raised their own children and selected which women married their children. If they didn't buy into a particular culture that was it. The feminist mystique type logic focus on year 15-35 when women were in a weaker position, right at marriage, compared to their husband who was often quite a bit older than them forgetting that traditionally women got their power 35-75
+Stacey Stakeley Should we? Then, and now, womens criteria for buying into any particular culture was mostly based on instinct and emotion encoded in them by thousands of iterations of natural selection, most of them occurring in vastly different conditions than today of a few thousands years ago. It was optimized for small tribes on African savannas, not agricultural society.
grinningchicken Except you have to take the average lifespan of the time into account. If women were dying in their mid to late 40's, the the whole 35-75 span is considerably diminished and the 'matron' period starts alot earlier. You also have to consider that 'childhood' as we think of it didn't happen back then. Little girls age 4 or 5 helped around the house and began training on how to manage a household. They may have had a dolly.... but they didn't play with it until after the chores were done.
KeyClavis 40 yr avg isat because people only lived to 40. Its because so many people died young. in infancy wars childbirth. If you made it to 40 you live a really long time because you have passed the major hurdles.
Women's position in history always gets so underestimated. It always bothers me when people say "Women were so oppressed, just look at history!"... History in many ways shows men and women working together, eventhough it's often out of necessity. Kinda makes me wonder where it all went wrong, really.
***** The "Abrahamic faiths" grew up around religions that were worse to their people in general. I know you want to flog your zombie steed, but Abrahimic religions were not the first or last to lift cane at home and sword abroad. Culture and religion affect each other. Industry changed both religion and culture. As it evolves, maybe so should your archaic Soviet attitude.
"Kinda makes me wonder where it all went wrong, really." We made life safe and work easy. And with the Necessety gone, Man turned from Threat and Protector to, just a Threat.
It all started with men doting their women too much, from there it escalated into women getting out of the kitchen (lol) and into the spaces where men were normally in charge, and its been going downhill ever since and will keep going downhill until men finally decide to come down hard on women again (Im talking about having negative consequenses for ther negative behavior). I assume youve seen the consequenses of women being "Liberated". Once feminism has been dealt with and the standards of wifes has gone up, womens quality will increase and we can continue our evolution (albeit a small one) and evolve into a better society.
Gsaror Personally, I think it has much to do with the fact that western society has been passified and individualized so much, that men no longer have the opportunity to use their outward power, and thus are stuck with a lot of pent up energy. As someone pointed out before, society is now "safe", so physical protection is no longer needed. But society has also become individualistic. No one wants to need anyone else, ever. So the part of outward power that deals with interactions with outside groups also becomes less important. Possibly, as a result men turn to the household instead, which is women's territory and that may be causing the imbalance in society with regards to men and women. I'm just writing this down as it comes into my mind, so don't take this as fact.
I'm at 2:30 in, and BTW, I love your text clarifications on pronunciation. Yes, it has made the word stick more in my head. Also BTW, even among the Mosuo, which is touted as a "matriarchal" society, it is men who deal with inter-village trade and men who deal with external politics. Probably because driving livestock to market involves a lot of walking on muddy roads in shitty weather, and external politics just aren't as safe as dealing with your extended family. Men also do the fishing, logging, boat-building, home-building, slaughtering of livestock, etc, while women do the weaving, sewing, cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. So here, we see that in this "matriarchal society" where women hold most of the institutional power, gender roles are upside down and backwards. Or maybe not.
It's years later, but I had a thought watching the video that is somewhat reflected in your comment. I was realizing that, should this inward facing/outward facing dichotomy be a real and natural occurrence (which seems reasonable enough), it doesn't matter quite so much that women aren't talked about a whole lot in "history." I wouldn't have said that in the past, but I'm realizing now that history only really cares about that outward facing stuff, at least history as we use the term in English. Something like social anthropology would be a great place to look if you want to see the achievements of women. This is a very limited and fledgling thought, but it has me wondering if many women are looking at an arbitrarily selected scoreboard - if you will - when complaining of the lack of women in written history.
it's ridiculous how it simply 'makes sense' to people that for thousands of years women were oppressed chattel without a voice or power to affect even their own lives, and suddenly 'rose up' and 'liberated themselves'.. As if modern women were somehow smarter and more capable than women in older times.
It makes people feel better that's why and it's simpler. Though largely it's just things people assume, they don't think about it too much and because most people are reasonable and try to be decent they assume it's the case and that it was bad. Though if you give them a bit of info they tend to see things differently.
it's the same logic as prehistoric homo sapiens being somehow more stupid than modern human. Sure, we have more to build up on and are able to skip steps of survival, but our ingenuity is not greater.
It's ridiculous how people think women have only been oppressed, and without voice. Not to say women were treated with the respect and equality, but famous women warriors were known in Celtic, french, Chinese and Japanese. Japan still uses the character for "woman ninja" for "woman". Even records from Rome show some powerful women, let alone later "strong" and influential cortisans, nurses, authors, and let's not forget England's greatest queen:
Your content has been terribly inspiring for my story telling, not to mention entertaining. It never seems to fail that I can pick any random video from your channel and it will inspire another plot point, or a pit fall to avoid, or a perspective I hadn't considered.
If you mean οίκος, it literally means house, both as structure and a family. In Game of Thrones for example, the house Stark would be "ο Οίκος των Σταρκ".
Greetings from greece :D The "o" in "oikos" is silent becoase the combination "oi" is one of the five( i's )we use (ι,η,υ,ει and οι) copy and paste the word (Οίκος) in greek google translate and press the speaker to hear how exactly we pronounce it. Sorry for the correction im not a grammar nazi, but it was very distracting to hear the word so many times wrong (both pronunciations were wrong) and the fact that the flashy subs were correcting it made it worse :D Anyway i love your channel man, very good work, keep it up :)
Gynocentrism has always been a corner stone of society. It all comes down to basic supply and demand. Eggs are scarce and sperm are abundant, to say the least.
What's very interesting is that in many native American tribes, the leadership of men was done by men, and the leadership of tribes clans was done by women. The Cherokee nation, for example, would often be lead by a woman, (many times, the eldest woman) and decisions on whether to go to war would require her approval. The sentiment being that a mother would only send her son into battle under the most grave of circumstances. This is a fact of life which was (and is) publicly embraced by many Native American tribes, but which seemed to have been lost to the annals of Eurasian history, and has only resurfaced since the birth of the Sitcom.
This is Thrand! Well done video and if you care to look though my videos I have done this many times butchered ancient words from cultures I do not specialize in many times only to realize it after I was done with the video. Feels good to know I am not the only one but we knew what you meant so the video is still excellent!
Just thought I'd mention, for those who might find it interesting, as you pointed out the connection with the oikos and economics, that "Oikos" is also the etymological root of the word "Economy". "Oiko+nomia", "House-management".
Lloyd, you're a bit mistaken about a few very important things: This sort of situation is not limited to the past, and within the family unit REAL diplomacy is done by women, not men. The men are only sent out once settlements have been achieved. I have personal experience of living in a sort of Chinese Oikos where many of the things you said holds true today. So here's my take of my extended family: 1. The head of a family is ALWAYS the matriarch. Back when great grandpa was alive he may have thought he was the boss, but mostly all he did was play chess and give sage advice in family gatherings. Great grandma was the one who decided when and where the family would gather. When great grandma became too feeble and senile to function (this was several years after great grandpa passed away), responsibility fell to the eldest son's wife (grandma). When she passed away, there was a family feud and eldest uncle got ostracized for selling grandma's inheritance without asking for permission from the rest of the family, while second uncle was already ostracized long ago, so now mom (wife of third son) is boss. Officially dad is the one who's supposed to go around calling on his brothers and sisters and their families to gather, but mom decides when and where. 2. Marriages are decided by women. When mom disagreed with my cousin's choice of mate, ALL the women in the extended family supported her, including aunty. This led to a few years of misery for the couple and they broke up in the end. 3. Back when grandma was alive, we had good relationships with her clan. When the extended family wanted to expand the family business, grandma's clan was the go-to business partners for family members (and we were theirs). When alliances were to be made, grandma would give a call to her younger brother (patriarch of that family) and discuss things with his wife. After that eldest uncle (this was before he was ostracized) would pay a visit to the clan patriarch to negotiate the terms, but realistically the decision is always made between the two women. If either grandma or her sister-in-law disagreed with the idea of alliance, eldest uncle would never have been sent. So this is where you got it wrong. The real diplomacy is done between women, not men. The men are just there to seal the deal and give it a face. Same with feuds and disputes. Men are only sent out once the women have struck a deal. Even outwards women held real power. However, I would hesitate to say this extended to interstate relationships. In feudal and oligarchic states something like this may have been the norm, but when we talk about democratic city states, things would have functioned very differently. 4. This extends to war too. I would be very careful about elevating this dynamic to the state level, because I believe that at that level the men's facade had gotten strong enough that the underground female dynamics couldn't have worked. When two states went to war, there would usually be very little or no marriage channels to discuss things through, so it really would be men doing real diplomatic work (arguably also why a lot of diplomatic endeavors failed). However, at the family level clan wars could happen from such simple things as grandma feeling insulted by her third brother's wife's lack of deference towards her during fourth uncle's daughter's wedding to the eldest son of another clan's patriarch. Yes, that actually happened. There's a complex dynamic going on two sentences ago, but it boils down to the fact that people should be congratulating grandma to high heavens during the event due to her success in arranging such a match. Third distaff great uncle's wife kinda screwed up, so we went to war with her clan. This ended only after third distaff great uncle (who got ostracized for a while) went and begged grandma for forgiveness. 5. Oh, and let's not forget, all the men work, then go home and deposit their salaries to their wives, who then decide how much allowance they get for spending. Most of the money belongs to the household, which is under the wife's direct control. In Japan analysts have used men's allowance sizes to measure consumer confidence. Women have a brutally direct impact on the economy of East Asia. So, there you go. Not in the past. Still going on now in many parts of the world.
Great work on the two videos! I've had many discussions with some of my friends about the role of women and their influence in the past. To me it seems that our view of women in the past only came about in around the 18'th century.
Hello, Loyd, thank you for all your interesting videos, I am really enjoying your analysis even when I disagree with you (not in this case). As I am Greek I just wanted to tell you the right way to pronounce oikos. The best way is if you have written it ekos, or maybe even eekos, as it is a longer e sound (like in e-mail). Oikos will translate into English to the words house (the building), household, family and clan. Hope you find it helpful and interesting.
***** US. I don't remember many details bu I do remember the subject came up concerning the Greek's reaction to the Etruscans and their treatment of women.
Usually depends on the city state, but despised would not be the correct word. A good deal of city states usually oppressed women harshly, but that was usually under the thought process of "The Strong do as they can and the Weak suffer what they must", so basically it was anyone who wasn't top dog was essentially screwed with.
If I may be so bold as to add a critique. You have done a wonderful job laying out the basics/general rules, and you did a great job at it twice but if you do a third video on the subject might I suggest that you go into more specifics of just one civilization because you have already pretty much covered the bases on what things could be like as a general rule.
It is true that women have consistently in every society held power, sometimes individually, sometimes collectively. But people in the comments seem to take this as 'historical sexism was a myth', which it wasent. Females have been barred from having the same education and opportunities as boys. What do you call that if not sexism?
There are people who blow things out of proportion, but the tone im getting from this is one of 'yeah there was a teensy bit of sexism but its all good' which is just uninformed. Marital rape was practices in most societies, domestic violence was legal and accepted in many societies, if a woman was raped her father receives compensation, and sometimes she has to marry her rapist, in many countries historically women were literally belived to be deformed versions of men, unable to think rationally, and too emotional to have any responsibility other than childcare, boys inherited over girls ect. Yes, there were a few who managed to succeed despite this sexism, but for every success story there are ten thousand more who lived in subjugation. And yes, class is another significant issue at play, and on an individual basis a highborn female is more privileged than a lowborn male, but within every class the division of power is in the males favour. With sometimes dire consequences for the females.
+umwha A few things: 1 moral, as we see it today, is very different as to the moral just 50 years ago, and most likely it will be very different in 50 years time... Point being, it really is quit risky to point fingers at social constructions a 1000 years ago, and scream sexism! It really does nothing good, and one risk closing the debat, especially when one brings up rape! 2 Were there sexism? I can't believe that there weren't, however one should remember that the rolls for each sex, was much more divided! So there were perhaps not that big a reason for a man to learn to cook in 1890 nor where there that big of a reason for a woman to learn to repair or make furniture in 1910... Again point being, people got the education that their family could afford/what was needed to do the job expected of the boy or girl. That can be seen as sexism, by today's standard, perhaps even by the standard of the time... But it were perhaps more practical in that time-frame, and made for a better chance of survival. 3 Many of the points you bring about, marriage, inheritance and so on, are true... However, they were true for both sexes, fx: marriage, this has in almost all our history been a choice made by the families, not the couple! Case in point, your example of a girl raped by a man, and getting pregnant, and then forced to marry the prick... The reason (as I am sure you already know) is that there are a greater chance of her having a future (and getting married) with him, then if she stayed with her parents... Another point, Inheritance, yes boys would inherent over girls (at least in most cultures), but don't forget that for the most times, the younger boys wouldn't inherent either... If all went well, the girls would be married of to boys/men that had enough wealth, that they could support a family, thus in that system, the girls were taken care of... My greater point is, yes by the standard of today, the world were sexist in earlier centuries... But perhaps that is a mistake made by us, because we have so much more wealth, that we actually has the freedoms, people just 80 years ago, never would have imagined! PS: I know that some time has gone since you made your post, but I was a bit provoked (as I am sure you can tell) by your premises
+bandholm God thank you you three I needed to read something intelligent in those comments. I'm starting to think more and more that concerning morality and ethics, the most sensible thing we should do would be to stop looking to the past , and try constructing from a blank slate. It's not that I don't find history fascinating ( or I wouldn't be there), but as you said, their belief, society and standard of living where complete different from ours, and even more importantly we have only biased threads of their history written down, not the complete picture. From my point of view, this does more harm than good to everybody
This fits very well with prechristian Scandinavia. The man was the head of the farm and things outside that, but the woman was the ruler of the house. At least, that seems to have been the most common arrangement.
I am just commenting to say, I fucking love your channel! Keep it up. I'd love to see a great axe fighting technique vid, that's not the point though. Your videos are always entertaining to me and usually informative as well. Thank you.
This reminds me of the story of Abigail in the Bible. It describes her as "the sensible wife of a senseless man" named Nabal, who insulted King David while he was drunk and almost got his entire house hold killed. When a servant sees David's army marching toward them he runs to Abigail, not her husband, to find a solution. She immediately gathers a years worth of food, clothes, wine and other goods and goes out to meet David's army alone. Long story short, Daivd takes the bribe, gives a long speech about how great she is and hundreds of lives were saved before Nabal had even gotten out of bed. That's the kind unwritten history most woman would be responsible for.
In Scandinavia the household was passed onto the women in the blood line so homes were generally owned by women. The idea was that men would take or make their own home somewhere else through raiding or trading.
Partially yes, in some way it did contribute to the collapse, however despite what their fearsome reputation would suggest vikings traded as much as they raided, in part vikings also provided something to the roman empire as well.
Just out of interest, what evidence do we have of this? Do any primary sources suggest marriage between Carolingian families and vikings as well? I wonder.
There was a similar system in Pueblo society in the southwestern US, the daughters would get the house and the men would have to make their own or marry into one.
"Inward Feminine, Outward Masculine" "Don't infer that I mean one is better and the other worse" I won't infer that. But I will infer the latent sexuality of the statement. :^)
Sort of like lion prides. The female lions do pretty much everything on a day to day basis, but when there is an issue involving another pride, the male lions step up and do the fighting/scaring off.
It's a pity that you have to spend so much time reassuring people that you're not trying to offend them. That time could have been spent to further disentangle ariadne's thread, and talk about what seems to me to be a hugely interesting topic. Thanks for touching upon this subject. I've always thought that most people have got it wrong with their perpection of the past. You often hear people say that men had all of the power, or, as you say, going on about Boudicca, and Joan of Arc. It seems to me that as the ones raising monarchs, generals, diplomats, merchants, and so on, they held a great deal of power. They influenced everyone, from those who would grow up to be the ones pulling the strings, to those who would be the strings. Women have always influenced the men of the society in which they lived in, and they did so directly, and decisively.
He's doing it for one, simple, reason. Feminists are like wildcats - they wait for the slightest hint of what could be severely misconstrued in to sexism and pounce en-mase, like a flood of bitter rage and self-centered anger.
Interesting that fiction fills that gap you get with the history books. That's pretty much where you get the analysis of the day to day it seems. Romeo and Juliette, which you quoted, and Shakespeare plays in general demonstrate the kind of inward power you're talking about, and quite frequently at that. I think I can think of a coupla pieces of fiction for each century of the last 7 centuries that show women in that role.
In the Native American Tribes, many of them were basically ran by the women, to the point where the women owned all the household items including the home. In some tribes they also controlled if the tribe went to war and who with. Always remember in the past as well as the present, many men in power are influenced by their women.
Surprising that I just found this video ... it's excellent. Many years ago, when I was an anthropology major in college, I wrote a research paper on polyandry (one woman married to multiple men). I was young and idealistic, and wanted to find a society where women "were in charge". I was wrong ... rather than one woman choosing to marry several husbands, polyandry usually grew out of poverty, when two men (usually brothers) who couldn't afford one wife each, shared. So not poly-andry (many man), but hemi-ogamy (half-woman). This knowledge was my first step on my exploration of evolutionary psychology, and this video is another step. Until the Industrial era, men and women had very different roles in society because of biology - not greater and lesser, just different.
I would say that I love all this drama my broad idea for a video created, but sadly a good chunk of it is so typical for internet controversy that all the pleasure has been sucked out of it. However, I certainly enjoyed the videos and the fact that I monopolized a total of 17:41 of your TH-cam time. I made the request vague partially because I wanted to see what you’d do with it. In your videos you seem rather unbiased when talking about women’s issues, which is refreshing when so many people are polarized on the subject. One point I think is important to note: While "inward power" was influential, the women of the past were nevertheless subservient to the men in their lives. Power was essentially delegated to women by men and could easily be removed if a man felt it was worth the trouble. However I imagine it would take some baddass women to wield such capricious power well.
Matchmaking is VERY powerful, it affects alliances both military and economic. And hence a good match in terms of familial power directly affects history in a very major way. We just don't read about the person who got together with Mrs So-and-so, to first say.. hey, my daughter thinks that there young lad is buff and hot etc, but I was wondering about YOUR lad.. any thoughts on that Mrs? Don't you think our 2 houses would be rich and powerful if we were joined? BFF!!! *gasp* grandchildren! SQUEEEEE! Yeah, fuck the Romans, then, eh!!! Bollocks to 'em, Speak to your husband and I'll speak to mine, meet back here in a week for baklava and a chat, yeah? Love your rouge btw, is it from Persia? You really must introduce me to your merchant...what's the price of gold over there at the moment?
I can't help but think that this is a response to my question on the previous video about bankers/noblemen/etc. and the fact that they manage finances/make decisions on hiring-firing/etc. even though you said it was a women's thing. Banking/mercantilism/trading/etc. does occupy the realm outside of "oikos" since those acts interact with other companies/family units/etc. I see you were referring specifically to those decisions within a family unit now, and yes that is very much a women's thing in the past. Thanks Lindy! This video gets a like from me! :)
I have heard this "inward/outward" power dialectic (In the Mediterranean and in Latin America) described similarly, but with the Spanish terms "casa / calle" , the woman's sphere of influence being in the house (or "casa"), and the men's sphere being on the street (or "calle") Interesting to see what may be the classical roots of that power split. And I'd never heard of the "Oikos", thanks for sharing!
Given that, in Japan (yes, there's this country again), this system still works and it still cultivated, it might mean one or both two things: 1. Women and men are predisposed, biologically, for these roles. 2. This "trend" is much older than the Greeks and was possibly born before migration from Africa, or even before humans fully evolved.
The basic reason is that men are biologically stronger (on average) while women give birth and can breast-feed their children. Thus during conflict (which were frequent in ancient times) men went to war while women stayed at home. Hence this distinction between the man taking care of the outside business while the woman manages the inside. In today's world though this separation doesn't make sense since a lot of things changed.
MrTrollaid The change you mentioned is important. In developed countries today the majority of people's lives won't be overly dangerous, so the advantage of strength is pretty meaningless most of the time. 1 on 1 duels to the death and week long hunts don't really happen anymore.
It might not be either, never underestimate the power of convergent social evolution. It could simply be that it's a really effective system and the groups who randomly happened upon it were more successful.
After watching this, a question came up in my mind. When did the proces start that, eventually after many ages, made woman's emancipation and the equal rights strugle necessary?
My understanding is that it occurred after the emancipation of the lower class men. The general male population only got a say (barring violent uprising) in very recent history. And shortly thereafter the women did as well.
One more very intresting video. Just a note though, "OI" in Greek is pronounced as a single "E". It is actually pronounced like ecos (ΔΦΑ : /ˈi.kɔs/) Keep up the good work! I really enjoyed waching this and prompted quite a fiery discussion with some of my friends.
I think you forgot the best part.... Stay with your example: The man with the four sons and the four daughters. The daughters don´t vanish with their marriage. They will be sisters to each others and daughters to their mother, won´t they? And as you pointed out in your other video, women gossip. They will stay connected. And as every of this women will have her own secret power over her husband (did Homer have a word for husband?) I strongly suspect, that a lot of the foreign affairs will be solved by female connection. Just.... under the radar of history. History mainly tells us what went wrong (if you presume that "peace and happiness" is right), so what we find in the history books is not what the bunch of female conspirers did if everything went well, but what men did, if it didn´t. Sounds to feministic, doesn´t it?
I had never heard of this social structure before, very intriguing to say the least. More research is required. Thank you for the fascinating videos on such a wide range of topics. The videos on swords and other ancient weapons is what originally attracted me to your channel. I have also really enjoyed your videos on historicalish, emphasis on ish, movies. I was wondering if you could comment on a particular movie sequence in a recent movie. I was wondering what you would think of the use of the shield wall in the recent Hercules movie with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson specifically. Incidentally you look and act a lot like my favorite uncle, right down to the British accent. The name is James by the way and thank you again for your channel. I enjoy it immensely.
I was told it was pronounced as written by my classics teacher. Not sure if he studied the language, but it's worth noting that Old and Modern Greek are rather different.
Interabderian From what I understand there is a difference in modern and ancient Greek pronunciation. At least from what I remember during Classics. Ancient tends to have a flatter way about it (if my memory serves) but not all pronunciation is different and I believe Oi is still pronounced with that 'ee' sound.
I will never feel bad again for my accent in japanese, german and english... also check out the IPA pronunciation, it helps a lot when dealing with "exotic" languages like greek and latin... and I love the topics of your channel, whether I agree or not, your points are well made ;)
Hey Lindy, don't know if someone already made a comment about that, but Oikos is pronounced ekos in english. We have many things that are pronounced like E. Οι, ει, η, ι, υι are all pronounced as e.
Graphic At least that is the traditional way. Since the crash at the end of 80s and the end of the salaryman (anglo-japanese for businessman, somebody working in a company) dream it started becoming impossible to have the wife be a housewife, that takes care after the kids and the man the breadwinner that hardly comes home, drinks beer in the evening and on weekends plays shougi with friends or takes the family to baseball or something. Since then the dynamics might have changed a bit, but there are still men that get ousted by their wives when the children grow up and people like that are unable to take care of themselves alone. Its just a tad bit more complex :)
The outward power mentioned such as wars, ambassador roles etc. where also of the high risk/reward kind and thus more exiting to read and write about I would imagine while people with inward power might not want to you write about their exiting exploits of manipulation or social backstabbing and they where in control of how much ink you had to write with. The outward also makes for more interesting reading to outsiders and has multiple sources making it more likely to be copied enough to survive.
That was really nicely put. One thing I would probably mention though is that women's inward power is much more subtle in nature - in most cases influence and manipulation rather than direct enforcement. That might be one of the reasons it was not written about - it was better for women to rule from the side and not stand in the spotlight much, while letting men grow their egos and feel all powerful. That's at least my observation in many modern households, maybe in some cultures of the past the customs and traditions made feminine power more out in the open. One show which portrays what kind of power women posess is Game of Thrones. Funny to see a more realistic portrayal of female characters in fantasy than in most historical movies.
I cannot help but notice that just about every time you mention "women's power" you say that they had influence over the decisions of men. That really is not the same as making a decision and having the power yourself.
its a bit of a advantage and disadvantage if you look at it differently. influencing a males decision can and was done, which does have the downside of being the man's word in the end, but it also is somewhat a protective screen for the women that had the influence. if the decision met unexpected problems, the blame generally would fall on the person who supposedly made the choice, the man. while its true there was some very unfair point and blame both ways. it also opens that argument of ''naturally'' made for it. lets face it, no matter what you say the average man is bigger, stronger and usually faster then the average female. its just how we developed as a species. the superior muscle and size helped with hunting while it wasn't as needed for the women who typically managed the running of the tribe/cave or whatever (also note that studies show that cave women were about equal to the average man today in muscle mass while cave men had even more). so building on your strengths from developing as a species seems to be the reasoning here, decisions and ''physical'' activity falls on men, while resource management and structure inside the system the man might lead was the woman's domain of control. think modern problem is people believe in equality which is great, but nothing is equal. just because you believe you are an equal to usain bolt doesn't mean you can run as fast as him or think mathematically like Stephen Hawking. we all excel in different areas and the 2 genders by way of species growth over time have just become more focused on the regions they effect more.
You're right, making decisions and influencing other's decisions are different; both are important though. An adviser to a king might not be the king, however, if his opinion is considered important then he is important.
Well look at it this way. Lobbyists in the American political system have no decision-making power, yet their _influence_ over the political process is held to be very large and very powerful. So powerful in fact that many people today believe we should start taking drastic steps to legally limit their influence. Influence IS power.
How do you know oikonomia would be pronounced the same way economy is today. In German the word for economy is pronounced in much the same way Lindy wished to pronounce oikos...
IdentityCrisis I know how oikonomia is pronounced because I'm Greek. The Ancient Greeks also pronounced it the same way. Oikos is pronounced like ecos, exactly. Even the intonation is the same. Oikos means house in more formal Greek.
+Carbon 12 Yeah, you would think that, but in our language we have many vowels and combinations of consonants and vowels that have exactly the same pronunciation. This goes way back to how our alphabet was created and evolved throughout the ancient times, but suffice it to say that written words carry meaning that spoken ones don't. If you add to that the, no longer taught, 4 different punctuation marks that were being used in ancient greek and were dependent on the surrounding text, and it gets quite complicated indeed... Apparently, in ancient greek, context was just as important as meaning, and all those different spellings and punctuation marks helped preserve context, in some way... I can't quite understand how it worked, I was never good with languages.
Sounds that the Oikos is similar to the Norse "Felag" ("Fe" means cattle or animals that was how wealth was measured so it also means wealth. "Lag" means combine, combination, together or team. So Felag means "wealth of the team" or "combined wealth". Quite similar to the modern Swedish word "Bolag" meaning company).
Because I've got in on tape! No seriously, there is a thing called linguistical science where people spend years trying to retrace and find evidence of the evolution of word pronunciation. And Greek has been very well documented since it belongs to one of the founding cultures of Europe. Sounds shift over the course of years, but they leave all kinds of traces everywhere. So yes, we can know.
Lindy, this simply isn't correct. Women were subjected to the head, kyrios ('master') of the household. If he died, the oldest son became the head of the family, and they had to obey him, their own son! They weren't even allowed to own a lot of things (hell, they didn't even receive citizenship) - what makes you think they would get to decide expenses? Maybe they did for things the citizens didn't care about. It's also not the frequency of certain actions you should be looking at but their *impact*. If the Strategoi decide to send me off to war to Sparta that's going to have a bigger impact on me than the wife deciding what's for supper over the course of well... my whole life. The point you make about match-making is particularly nauseating because whether people 'would make a good match' wasn't the issue, in fact it was irrelevant: it was a purely political issue that decided whether they made a good match and that could be gauged and decided by men perfectly well. Source: my history teacher (master's degree) and my history mentor... I'm sorry to say this man I like you and all but too often do you seem to interpret history by looking for 'what would have made sense' compared to 'what was the way it actually was' and end up with a far too subjective view... When you have this many viewers you simply can't afford to spread incorrect information like that.
Finally someone with common sense! Women had "power" over things men didn't feel like bothering with. And yet despite this, if a man wanted to have the final say, it was still his word over hers. Same for matchmaking, men would also play matchmaker for their daughters (sometimes would marry them to their friends) because arranged marriages were primarily for power for the family and it was the father's permission that was really required. It disgusts me that this guy paints not being allowed to participate in politics or really decide anything in your life as "power". It's just so sad that your comment will lay at the bottom because guys would much rather eat up this guy's imaginary version of history where women were totally not subjugated and treated like property and real historians just overreact to everything apparently.
Your source is your 'history teacher'? Well aren't I fucking swayed. They sound like brilliant people and you're just as admirable. You complain that the history isn't 'the way it actually was', and it's your history teacher. Lemme guess: is she a chick? The concept of citizenship differs than what we see it today. It varies on what part you visit. You state that 'they weren't allowed to own a lot of things', and offer no examples. You simply can't spread misinformation like that. What part of Greece are we talking about? Athens? Sparta? Crete? We get it, we get it. It was a gay paradise, too.
***** Dude, you need to stop. You can't even tell the difference between Ancient Greece and Ptolemaic Egypt and you literally tried to justify Greek sexism and slavery. You lied that you're a woman and you didn't offer a single counterargument to this guy's claims, despite him even using terms you could easily Google to check. You literally said anti-sufragettes were right. Why are you humiliating yourself like this? Why are you denying historical facts from people who know what they're talking about when you've never read a book on ancient Greece in your life? What issues in your life would possibly compel you to be pathetic like this when we both know you're completely ignorant in this area?
Really nice videos, here! I'm part from the Maldive Islands, which, back in the day also were an excellent representation of the 'Inward power' in society. Though, because these were small coral islands where fishery was basically the only job men had, the matriarchal aspect of their social structure was even more prominent. Farming (yams and the few vegetables that could grow in the island soil) was done by the women, so was processing the food the men fished as well as making rope and handicrafts for the men. And even though they practiced a light form of Islam, when there was a marriage, the man would move to the woman's house. Now that I think of it, the female dominance of households is still very dominant in much of South Asia and South East Asia. You don;t need to go to Homeric Greece to find examples! PS: sorry for typos because it's 4 am. Thanks again for the videos! Love 'em!
As to the tangential powers(thank you for having me looking that definition up finally, btw), I'd say... Uh... Nothing to say. I believe you covered them all? What's not done by women has to be done by men. It's just the fact that we focus on only one aspect of any victory or deed, and completely disregard the part their spouses played in said victory.
Dear Lloyd, I do love your work and that's why I make this comment. I know I came 2 years late, but let me help with the pronunciation of Greek. I know that by seeing the word "Οίκος" what you'd think is to translate letter for letter to Latin and read what you have, but actually, in Greek if you find the letters "ο" and "ι" together, they are pronounced "e". So what you're looking for is like the word "echo" with an "s" at the end. My apologies if my phonetic notes were not up to par, but I hope it was at least a little helpful :) Free tips for future reference: Same thing happens with the letters "ε" and "ι" if found together, they are also pronounced "e". However, if the "ι" is written like this: ϊ In that case you always pronounce each letter separately, so the way you pronounced the word Oikos in your video would actually be "Οϊκος". The double vowel thingy in Greek is a bit tricky. I'd be happy to give you the full explanation if you need it. You may or may not need this information in the future and you might as well already know it, but here goes. Thanks for the great videos and the hours of research you put into them. Take care :)
It's pronounced ikos and the modern translation is home, the difference is that families were larger thus the people living in a home were not so closely related... but oikos is the equivalent of spiti the way home is the equivalent of house, oikos means house but it also meant more. Something that perhaps may clarify things is that the first part of the word oikogenia (family) is oikos and the second is genos witch means your family tree (loosely translated). I know I probably confused more than I helped but not only some Greek words carry some underlying meaning but also the words themselves derive from weird word roots... Genos for instance comes from the Geek word Genisi (you might know as Genesis) and means birth.
i am afraid i am going to break your heart lindybeige, but the greek pronunciacion for the letters "oi" is "i" as in linen or linda or lindybeige :) (not as in light or icon etc). so oikos is pronounced "ikos". when people first transplanted that word from greek to english they wrote it with an "e". ecology and economy for instance have ikos inside them. they are translations of ther greek οικολογια and οικονομια.
I find the "einater" part particularly interesting. There's a sayig in linguistics, "Languages code best what speakers do most.". Applied to this case, it would seem that the ancient greeks simply didn't talk much about "wives" (not in the way we do anyways), and that the concept of a "wife" wasn'st very important to them. However, this concept of "the wives of brothers" did have its own word, suggesting that in the mind of the ancient greeks, that was an important and relevant distinction. This seems to support Lindy's notion about inward power from a linguistic (and, dare I say it, psychological) point of view.
Say lindybeige a very off topic question but I have been wondering about the Swiss Saber. I have seen replicas of the swords and was wondering if you know anything about the sword and what it preps was back when people use the thing.
I would add that the reason men were responsible for the "outward facing" activities was because those activities tended to be dangerous - war, travel, diplomacy - and biologically speaking, men are more expendable than women, as you discuss in the video on "Sex power - why women were different and men were expendable" 4:48 The bit about the powerful coalition of einaters reminds me of the "sex strike" in the play Lysistrata
as a greek this was too funny especially when he said oy-kos... YESSSSSSSS well the word is e-kos... in the greek language we have... lets say a few letters and combination of letters for the sound of "e" : i, h, y, ei, oi... all those are read with the same sound.
You say trade between oikoses (oikoi?) was handled by men, but household economic management was handled by women. What was the distinction between theses tasks? Was there any overlap?
+Tobin Holcomb Women would determine how much food you needed because they were in control of the cooking. They would give anything they felt was not required to the men to trade for more resources. If the household had more than enough carrots, they'd send the men to the ranch down the road to trade them for milk and cheese. If they had a potter, they'd send the men to trade those for a cow or whatever else they thought would work. Gossip, I believe, was also used to by women to find out who had too many resources or needed something. This meant the men could focus on the task of getting the stuff there, trade them, and come home for dinner. The women already did their share of the work finding the information to begin with. Then the men could focus on the fields again without having to take the time to figure everything out on their own. I think that's kind of what it meant.
Interesting video. I feel that we have been pushing this underdogness (and women being fully underpower of men) narrative on history in recent times. Very interesting to see fresh take on the matter.
Just thank you. I've dumped a lot of words in your comment section, but I just had to. I really did. I am so sick of the "millennia of oppression of women who were treated like chattel" narrative, and it's nice to see someone actually speak knowledgeably on the subject of historical female power. I have had feminists tell me that the relationship between man and wife was that of master and slave, and I'm sorry, that's just not how it was.
Feminists like being "oppressed". You'r ruining their fantasies.
Alright Karen. :)
Karen Straughan, just passing by to say that the only living person I respect more than you is that one retired battle veteran that decided to go back to war-torn countries and set up an independent mercenary group with the sole purpose of rescuing and saving children from war and violence.
I wish feminists took you as a role model.
karen straughan All right. I can buy that there is historical evidence that disproves the idea of millennia of oppression that women suffered. Now, can you find any way to get that information to a group of people that will actively fight to ignore it?
This is a problem that I think is perhaps intractable. The ones that need to be convinced aren't the ones in the center already, or those willing to listen to reason and be convinced of the facts. They are, instead, those that hold a singular opinion who will not step even far enough away to ask "is what I was taught really true".
Worse, I'm coming to the conclusion that the people that hold different opinions most strongly are often driven tot hat position by biological factors. One such case is the fact that conservatives tend to be both more fearful and less intelligent than their Liberal counterparts. To that end they become afraid of everything and resist change, since that would mean making a mentally stressful adaptation.
Liberals have their own issues, some of which, at the extremes of liberal and authoritarian (SJW, Intersectionalists/Rad Fems) seem to be nearly identical cause, if not response, to that of the right wing.
This being the case, it may not be possible to change any minds on almost any topic, unless you are dealing with people that already fit a ready made template that would allow for the conversion.
So, do you think that it's possible to reach those doing the most harm and damage and change their minds using information?
I have to wonder if restating things to fit a fear based, but different model, would work for some of them? Perhaps letting Feminists understand that their positions built to harm and undermine men are harming themselves? Still, I doubt they could hear that over the screams of patriarchy!
Andrew Fisher Most of them are ugly cows that have rape fantasies. They wish a man would touch them.
I believe it was said very well in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
The man, is the head, but the woman is the neck. And the she can turn the head, any way she wants.
Yes. Any head that didnt turn didnt get to make more heads until you got this situation where all the heads are turning. Its a form of survival bias i guess, on a genetic level, evolution at work. If you fight it you get erased. There are no winners in this story, except life.
@Jimmy you never had a sore neck and couldn't turn your head the way you want? When your body isn't functioning properly, it doesn't really matter what the head wants, the body dictates what happens.
@@jonsimpson6240 Overall, the head is in control. But there are sporadic moments where it isnt (like the example you just said). Same can be applied to men and women.
I left youtube on autoplay for a few hours and saw 38 Lindybeige videos.
o_O
that must have been quite the most extraordinary couple of hours you ever lived through
^_^
@@shannonstrobel6727 I've never heard a decade referred to as a couple hours before lol
@@dELTA13579111315 his older videos are mostly shorter. I guess after a while he just gave up on trying to stop himself of going on one tangent after another.
"Who had the tangential power?"
LindyBeige, obviously. He's off on a tangent all the time.
What was the word for the family/corporation thing again, you only said it briefly at the start?
Oikios
œkos
The thing people forget when analyzing cultures in the women are not 15-35 the childbearing years the whole time. 35-75 a mature woman is going to be a bigger part of her life. Most of the influence is going to be then. Arranging marriages dealing with finances, solving disputes, serving as an intermediary to her husband or running the show after he has passed on.
Women not only usually decide which genes are getting passed on but what culture is being passed on. Because they raised their own children and selected which women married their children. If they didn't buy into a particular culture that was it.
The feminist mystique type logic focus on year 15-35 when women were in a weaker position, right at marriage, compared to their husband who was often quite a bit older than them forgetting that traditionally women got their power 35-75
+Stacey Stakeley Should we? Then, and now, womens criteria for buying into any particular culture was mostly based on instinct and emotion encoded in them by thousands of iterations of natural selection, most of them occurring in vastly different conditions than today of a few thousands years ago. It was optimized for small tribes on African savannas, not agricultural society.
grinningchicken Except you have to take the average lifespan of the time into account. If women were dying in their mid to late 40's, the the whole 35-75 span is considerably diminished and the 'matron' period starts alot earlier. You also have to consider that 'childhood' as we think of it didn't happen back then. Little girls age 4 or 5 helped around the house and began training on how to manage a household. They may have had a dolly.... but they didn't play with it until after the chores were done.
KeyClavis 40 yr avg isat because people only lived to 40. Its because so many people died young. in infancy wars childbirth. If you made it to 40 you live a really long time because you have passed the major hurdles.
I wish Lloyd had been my history teacher when I was in high school, maybe I would have actually payed attention and learned something then.
*paid
Then you would have a bias and misinformed view on history.
JOAO VITOR Jungblut I shuld of paid attenshen during inglish ass wel it seems.
The more important thing is you are paying attention now.
Random Passerby
Yes you should HAVE
Women's position in history always gets so underestimated. It always bothers me when people say "Women were so oppressed, just look at history!"... History in many ways shows men and women working together, eventhough it's often out of necessity. Kinda makes me wonder where it all went wrong, really.
***** The "Abrahamic faiths" grew up around religions that were worse to their people in general. I know you want to flog your zombie steed, but Abrahimic religions were not the first or last to lift cane at home and sword abroad. Culture and religion affect each other. Industry changed both religion and culture. As it evolves, maybe so should your archaic Soviet attitude.
"Kinda makes me wonder where it all went wrong, really."
We made life safe and work easy. And with the Necessety gone, Man turned from Threat and Protector to, just a Threat.
Christian Brode
And what did that make women? Just babymakers and semen depositories?
It all started with men doting their women too much, from there it escalated into women getting out of the kitchen (lol) and into the spaces where men were normally in charge, and its been going downhill ever since and will keep going downhill until men finally decide to come down hard on women again (Im talking about having negative consequenses for ther negative behavior). I assume youve seen the consequenses of women being "Liberated". Once feminism has been dealt with and the standards of wifes has gone up, womens quality will increase and we can continue our evolution (albeit a small one) and evolve into a better society.
Gsaror Personally, I think it has much to do with the fact that western society has been passified and individualized so much, that men no longer have the opportunity to use their outward power, and thus are stuck with a lot of pent up energy. As someone pointed out before, society is now "safe", so physical protection is no longer needed. But society has also become individualistic. No one wants to need anyone else, ever. So the part of outward power that deals with interactions with outside groups also becomes less important.
Possibly, as a result men turn to the household instead, which is women's territory and that may be causing the imbalance in society with regards to men and women. I'm just writing this down as it comes into my mind, so don't take this as fact.
I'm at 2:30 in, and BTW, I love your text clarifications on pronunciation. Yes, it has made the word stick more in my head.
Also BTW, even among the Mosuo, which is touted as a "matriarchal" society, it is men who deal with inter-village trade and men who deal with external politics. Probably because driving livestock to market involves a lot of walking on muddy roads in shitty weather, and external politics just aren't as safe as dealing with your extended family. Men also do the fishing, logging, boat-building, home-building, slaughtering of livestock, etc, while women do the weaving, sewing, cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. So here, we see that in this "matriarchal society" where women hold most of the institutional power, gender roles are upside down and backwards.
Or maybe not.
It's years later, but I had a thought watching the video that is somewhat reflected in your comment. I was realizing that, should this inward facing/outward facing dichotomy be a real and natural occurrence (which seems reasonable enough), it doesn't matter quite so much that women aren't talked about a whole lot in "history." I wouldn't have said that in the past, but I'm realizing now that history only really cares about that outward facing stuff, at least history as we use the term in English. Something like social anthropology would be a great place to look if you want to see the achievements of women.
This is a very limited and fledgling thought, but it has me wondering if many women are looking at an arbitrarily selected scoreboard - if you will - when complaining of the lack of women in written history.
The Iroquois also had a similar male/female power dynamic
does it kinda suck having the first name "karen" ? very sad and ironic considering u most certainly are not a "karen"
it's ridiculous how it simply 'makes sense' to people that for thousands of years women were oppressed chattel without a voice or power to affect even their own lives, and suddenly 'rose up' and 'liberated themselves'.. As if modern women were somehow smarter and more capable than women in older times.
It makes people feel better that's why and it's simpler. Though largely it's just things people assume, they don't think about it too much and because most people are reasonable and try to be decent they assume it's the case and that it was bad. Though if you give them a bit of info they tend to see things differently.
Retconning history is easy when you take total control of the media, the schools, the textbooks...
it's the same logic as prehistoric homo sapiens being somehow more stupid than modern human. Sure, we have more to build up on and are able to skip steps of survival, but our ingenuity is not greater.
@@nutyyyy lol what about domestic abuse???
It's ridiculous how people think women have only been oppressed, and without voice. Not to say women were treated with the respect and equality, but famous women warriors were known in Celtic, french, Chinese and Japanese. Japan still uses the character for "woman ninja" for "woman". Even records from Rome show some powerful women, let alone later "strong" and influential cortisans, nurses, authors, and let's not forget England's greatest queen:
What a world we live in where you have to go out of your way to explain that you are not trying to be judgmental.
Your content has been terribly inspiring for my story telling, not to mention entertaining. It never seems to fail that I can pick any random video from your channel and it will inspire another plot point, or a pit fall to avoid, or a perspective I hadn't considered.
If you mean οίκος, it literally means house, both as structure and a family. In Game of Thrones for example, the house Stark would be "ο Οίκος των Σταρκ".
Greetings from greece :D
The "o" in "oikos" is silent becoase the combination "oi" is one of the five( i's )we use (ι,η,υ,ει and οι)
copy and paste the word (Οίκος) in greek google translate and press the speaker to hear how exactly we pronounce it.
Sorry for the correction im not a grammar nazi, but it was very distracting to hear the word so many times wrong (both pronunciations were wrong) and the fact that the flashy subs were correcting it made it worse :D
Anyway i love your channel man, very good work, keep it up :)
Gynocentrism has always been a corner stone of society. It all comes down to basic supply and demand. Eggs are scarce and sperm are abundant, to say the least.
Lloyd clearly holds the tangential power, as he goes off on more tangents in his videos than anyone else.
He has more tangeants than a circle.
It’s called being too knowledgeable and doing everything in one take.
What's very interesting is that in many native American tribes, the leadership of men was done by men, and the leadership of tribes clans was done by women. The Cherokee nation, for example, would often be lead by a woman, (many times, the eldest woman) and decisions on whether to go to war would require her approval. The sentiment being that a mother would only send her son into battle under the most grave of circumstances. This is a fact of life which was (and is) publicly embraced by many Native American tribes, but which seemed to have been lost to the annals of Eurasian history, and has only resurfaced since the birth of the Sitcom.
Nice to see more videos on history in general and not only the violence part
I bet Megan is happy, she got two videos!
Lindy deserves twice the amount of suprise elementals now!
MikaelDryden
But now that you said it, it wouldn't be at all surprising.
Poldovico So now you're expecting it, you're not expecting it?
TrolleyMouse
But that loops back around and makes me still expect it.
+poldovico
But you can never expect the Spanish Inquisition
I love the subtitles everytime you say Oikios^^
I love these rambling videos. Despite "oikios" you're incredibly well spoken and fluent, it's a pleasure to listen to you.
This is Thrand! Well done video and if you care to look though my videos I have done this many times butchered ancient words from cultures I do not specialize in many times only to realize it after I was done with the video. Feels good to know I am not the only one but we knew what you meant so the video is still excellent!
Just thought I'd mention, for those who might find it interesting, as you pointed out the connection with the
oikos and economics, that "Oikos" is also the etymological root of the word "Economy". "Oiko+nomia", "House-management".
Lloyd, you're a bit mistaken about a few very important things: This sort of situation is not limited to the past, and within the family unit REAL diplomacy is done by women, not men. The men are only sent out once settlements have been achieved. I have personal experience of living in a sort of Chinese Oikos where many of the things you said holds true today. So here's my take of my extended family:
1. The head of a family is ALWAYS the matriarch. Back when great grandpa was alive he may have thought he was the boss, but mostly all he did was play chess and give sage advice in family gatherings. Great grandma was the one who decided when and where the family would gather. When great grandma became too feeble and senile to function (this was several years after great grandpa passed away), responsibility fell to the eldest son's wife (grandma). When she passed away, there was a family feud and eldest uncle got ostracized for selling grandma's inheritance without asking for permission from the rest of the family, while second uncle was already ostracized long ago, so now mom (wife of third son) is boss. Officially dad is the one who's supposed to go around calling on his brothers and sisters and their families to gather, but mom decides when and where.
2. Marriages are decided by women. When mom disagreed with my cousin's choice of mate, ALL the women in the extended family supported her, including aunty. This led to a few years of misery for the couple and they broke up in the end.
3. Back when grandma was alive, we had good relationships with her clan. When the extended family wanted to expand the family business, grandma's clan was the go-to business partners for family members (and we were theirs). When alliances were to be made, grandma would give a call to her younger brother (patriarch of that family) and discuss things with his wife. After that eldest uncle (this was before he was ostracized) would pay a visit to the clan patriarch to negotiate the terms, but realistically the decision is always made between the two women. If either grandma or her sister-in-law disagreed with the idea of alliance, eldest uncle would never have been sent. So this is where you got it wrong. The real diplomacy is done between women, not men. The men are just there to seal the deal and give it a face. Same with feuds and disputes. Men are only sent out once the women have struck a deal. Even outwards women held real power. However, I would hesitate to say this extended to interstate relationships. In feudal and oligarchic states something like this may have been the norm, but when we talk about democratic city states, things would have functioned very differently.
4. This extends to war too. I would be very careful about elevating this dynamic to the state level, because I believe that at that level the men's facade had gotten strong enough that the underground female dynamics couldn't have worked. When two states went to war, there would usually be very little or no marriage channels to discuss things through, so it really would be men doing real diplomatic work (arguably also why a lot of diplomatic endeavors failed). However, at the family level clan wars could happen from such simple things as grandma feeling insulted by her third brother's wife's lack of deference towards her during fourth uncle's daughter's wedding to the eldest son of another clan's patriarch. Yes, that actually happened. There's a complex dynamic going on two sentences ago, but it boils down to the fact that people should be congratulating grandma to high heavens during the event due to her success in arranging such a match. Third distaff great uncle's wife kinda screwed up, so we went to war with her clan. This ended only after third distaff great uncle (who got ostracized for a while) went and begged grandma for forgiveness.
5. Oh, and let's not forget, all the men work, then go home and deposit their salaries to their wives, who then decide how much allowance they get for spending. Most of the money belongs to the household, which is under the wife's direct control. In Japan analysts have used men's allowance sizes to measure consumer confidence. Women have a brutally direct impact on the economy of East Asia.
So, there you go. Not in the past. Still going on now in many parts of the world.
Great work on the two videos! I've had many discussions with some of my friends about the role of women and their influence in the past. To me it seems that our view of women in the past only came about in around the 18'th century.
Hello, Loyd, thank you for all your interesting videos, I am really enjoying your analysis even when I disagree with you (not in this case). As I am Greek I just wanted to tell you the right way to pronounce oikos. The best way is if you have written it ekos, or maybe even eekos, as it is a longer e sound (like in e-mail). Oikos will translate into English to the words house (the building), household, family and clan. Hope you find it helpful and interesting.
This is interesting; I remember from High School history classes that were were told that the Greeks despised women, but the Oikos never came up.
What country was your high school in?
***** US. I don't remember many details bu I do remember the subject came up concerning the Greek's reaction to the Etruscans and their treatment of women.
SpitshineSneakers What state?
SpitshineSneakers For some reason I'm not surprised. ;-)
Usually depends on the city state, but despised would not be the correct word. A good deal of city states usually oppressed women harshly, but that was usually under the thought process of "The Strong do as they can and the Weak suffer what they must", so basically it was anyone who wasn't top dog was essentially screwed with.
If I may be so bold as to add a critique.
You have done a wonderful job laying out the basics/general rules, and you did a great job at it twice but if you do a third video on the subject might I suggest that you go into more specifics of just one civilization because you have already pretty much covered the bases on what things could be like as a general rule.
It is true that women have consistently in every society held power, sometimes individually, sometimes collectively. But people in the comments seem to take this as 'historical sexism was a myth', which it wasent. Females have been barred from having the same education and opportunities as boys. What do you call that if not sexism?
There are people who blow things out of proportion, but the tone im getting from this is one of 'yeah there was a teensy bit of sexism but its all good' which is just uninformed. Marital rape was practices in most societies, domestic violence was legal and accepted in many societies, if a woman was raped her father receives compensation, and sometimes she has to marry her rapist, in many countries historically women were literally belived to be deformed versions of men, unable to think rationally, and too emotional to have any responsibility other than childcare, boys inherited over girls ect. Yes, there were a few who managed to succeed despite this sexism, but for every success story there are ten thousand more who lived in subjugation. And yes, class is another significant issue at play, and on an individual basis a highborn female is more privileged than a lowborn male, but within every class the division of power is in the males favour. With sometimes dire consequences for the females.
thankyou for your rational response. :)
+umwha
A few things:
1 moral, as we see it today, is very different as to the moral just 50 years ago, and most likely it will be very different in 50 years time... Point being, it really is quit risky to point fingers at social constructions a 1000 years ago, and scream sexism! It really does nothing good, and one risk closing the debat, especially when one brings up rape!
2 Were there sexism? I can't believe that there weren't, however one should remember that the rolls for each sex, was much more divided! So there were perhaps not that big a reason for a man to learn to cook in 1890 nor where there that big of a reason for a woman to learn to repair or make furniture in 1910... Again point being, people got the education that their family could afford/what was needed to do the job expected of the boy or girl. That can be seen as sexism, by today's standard, perhaps even by the standard of the time... But it were perhaps more practical in that time-frame, and made for a better chance of survival.
3 Many of the points you bring about, marriage, inheritance and so on, are true... However, they were true for both sexes, fx: marriage, this has in almost all our history been a choice made by the families, not the couple!
Case in point, your example of a girl raped by a man, and getting pregnant, and then forced to marry the prick... The reason (as I am sure you already know) is that there are a greater chance of her having a future (and getting married) with him, then if she stayed with her parents...
Another point, Inheritance, yes boys would inherent over girls (at least in most cultures), but don't forget that for the most times, the younger boys wouldn't inherent either... If all went well, the girls would be married of to boys/men that had enough wealth, that they could support a family, thus in that system, the girls were taken care of...
My greater point is, yes by the standard of today, the world were sexist in earlier centuries... But perhaps that is a mistake made by us, because we have so much more wealth, that we actually has the freedoms, people just 80 years ago, never would have imagined!
PS: I know that some time has gone since you made your post, but I was a bit provoked (as I am sure you can tell) by your premises
adekaiwamisou Glad you think so :)
+bandholm God thank you you three I needed to read something intelligent in those comments.
I'm starting to think more and more that concerning morality and ethics, the most sensible thing we should do would be to stop looking to the past , and try constructing from a blank slate.
It's not that I don't find history fascinating ( or I wouldn't be there), but as you said, their belief, society and standard of living where complete different from ours, and even more importantly we have only biased threads of their history written down, not the complete picture.
From my point of view, this does more harm than good to everybody
Fantastic video yet again! You are thoroughly entertaining and enlightening :)
This fits very well with prechristian Scandinavia. The man was the head of the farm and things outside that, but the woman was the ruler of the house. At least, that seems to have been the most common arrangement.
I am just commenting to say, I fucking love your channel! Keep it up. I'd love to see a great axe fighting technique vid, that's not the point though. Your videos are always entertaining to me and usually informative as well. Thank you.
This reminds me of the story of Abigail in the Bible. It describes her as "the sensible wife of a senseless man" named Nabal, who insulted King David while he was drunk and almost got his entire house hold killed.
When a servant sees David's army marching toward them he runs to Abigail, not her husband, to find a solution. She immediately gathers a years worth of food, clothes, wine and other goods and goes out to meet David's army alone.
Long story short, Daivd takes the bribe, gives a long speech about how great she is and hundreds of lives were saved before Nabal had even gotten out of bed. That's the kind unwritten history most woman would be responsible for.
Love your disclaimer at the beginning! LOL Seems like everybody's a litigation lawyer these days... haha... Gotta play it safe brother! lol
Thanks to the fact that Oikos brand Greek yogurt exists where I am, I will indeed remember the correct term.
New drinking game when lindy says "oikos" take a shot=dead within 3 minutes.
In Scandinavia the household was passed onto the women in the blood line so homes were generally owned by women. The idea was that men would take or make their own home somewhere else through raiding or trading.
+Yoriko Arran I wonder. Do you think that culture may have been a partial cause of the many raids that nearly collapsed the Holy Roman Empire?
Partially yes, in some way it did contribute to the collapse, however despite what their fearsome reputation would suggest vikings traded as much as they raided, in part vikings also provided something to the roman empire as well.
Just out of interest, what evidence do we have of this? Do any primary sources suggest marriage between Carolingian families and vikings as well? I wonder.
I will have to read up on that matter before I can give an educated answer.
There was a similar system in Pueblo society in the southwestern US, the daughters would get the house and the men would have to make their own or marry into one.
honestly lloyd. The thing I have learnt most completely from your videos is the word oikos.
Your miss prenunciation did help!
Lindybeige hasn't posted anything for 3 weeks. I am forced to assume that he was lynched by Tumblr feminists/whateverists for bursting their bubble.
Wait, he actually died? Or are you joking? I honestly can't tell. I can't find anything one way or another.
It if makes you feel better Lloyd, I don't think I will ever forget the work Oikos.
"Inward Feminine, Outward Masculine"
"Don't infer that I mean one is better and the other worse"
I won't infer that.
But I will infer the latent sexuality of the statement.
:^)
lmao nice one
Sort of like lion prides. The female lions do pretty much everything on a day to day basis, but when there is an issue involving another pride, the male lions step up and do the fighting/scaring off.
"Sort of like lion prides"
Sort of not even remotely like that.
It's a pity that you have to spend so much time reassuring people that you're not trying to offend them. That time could have been spent to further disentangle ariadne's thread, and talk about what seems to me to be a hugely interesting topic. Thanks for touching upon this subject. I've always thought that most people have got it wrong with their perpection of the past. You often hear people say that men had all of the power, or, as you say, going on about Boudicca, and Joan of Arc. It seems to me that as the ones raising monarchs, generals, diplomats, merchants, and so on, they held a great deal of power. They influenced everyone, from those who would grow up to be the ones pulling the strings, to those who would be the strings. Women have always influenced the men of the society in which they lived in, and they did so directly, and decisively.
He's doing it for one, simple, reason. Feminists are like wildcats - they wait for the slightest hint of what could be severely misconstrued in to sexism and pounce en-mase, like a flood of bitter rage and self-centered anger.
Great video. Yes, many today don't see the unseen. Only the easily seen external world.
Interesting that fiction fills that gap you get with the history books. That's pretty much where you get the analysis of the day to day it seems. Romeo and Juliette, which you quoted, and Shakespeare plays in general demonstrate the kind of inward power you're talking about, and quite frequently at that. I think I can think of a coupla pieces of fiction for each century of the last 7 centuries that show women in that role.
Fascinating video, thank you for your perspective.
In the Native American Tribes, many of them were basically ran by the women, to the point where the women owned all the household items including the home. In some tribes they also controlled if the tribe went to war and who with.
Always remember in the past as well as the present, many men in power are influenced by their women.
I didn't even know you were a nerdfighter, before I read this end joke! More nerd power to you, DFTBA!
Maybe do series video about women through ages?
Surprising that I just found this video ... it's excellent.
Many years ago, when I was an anthropology major in college, I wrote a research paper on polyandry (one woman married to multiple men). I was young and idealistic, and wanted to find a society where women "were in charge". I was wrong ... rather than one woman choosing to marry several husbands, polyandry usually grew out of poverty, when two men (usually brothers) who couldn't afford one wife each, shared. So not poly-andry (many man), but hemi-ogamy (half-woman).
This knowledge was my first step on my exploration of evolutionary psychology, and this video is another step. Until the Industrial era, men and women had very different roles in society because of biology - not greater and lesser, just different.
YOU. ARE. FASCINATING.
I would say that I love all this drama my broad idea for a video created, but sadly a good chunk of it is so typical for internet controversy that all the pleasure has been sucked out of it. However, I certainly enjoyed the videos and the fact that I monopolized a total of 17:41 of your TH-cam time.
I made the request vague partially because I wanted to see what you’d do with it. In your videos you seem rather unbiased when talking about women’s issues, which is refreshing when so many people are polarized on the subject.
One point I think is important to note: While "inward power" was influential, the women of the past were nevertheless subservient to the men in their lives. Power was essentially delegated to women by men and could easily be removed if a man felt it was worth the trouble. However I imagine it would take some baddass women to wield such capricious power well.
Matchmaking is VERY powerful, it affects alliances both military and economic. And hence a good match in terms of familial power directly affects history in a very major way. We just don't read about the person who got together with Mrs So-and-so, to first say.. hey, my daughter thinks that there young lad is buff and hot etc, but I was wondering about YOUR lad.. any thoughts on that Mrs? Don't you think our 2 houses would be rich and powerful if we were joined? BFF!!! *gasp* grandchildren! SQUEEEEE!
Yeah, fuck the Romans, then, eh!!! Bollocks to 'em, Speak to your husband and I'll speak to mine, meet back here in a week for baklava and a chat, yeah? Love your rouge btw, is it from Persia? You really must introduce me to your merchant...what's the price of gold over there at the moment?
this works so well.....
What's the price of... GOLD IS THE PRICE!!!
...
Except where the price is salt.
NieroshaiTheSable LOL hadn't thought of that!
I'm going to like your comment just because of your name and your cool picture
NieroshaiTheSable
or silver... the athenians operated their economy on silver...
I can't help but think that this is a response to my question on the previous video about bankers/noblemen/etc. and the fact that they manage finances/make decisions on hiring-firing/etc. even though you said it was a women's thing. Banking/mercantilism/trading/etc. does occupy the realm outside of "oikos" since those acts interact with other companies/family units/etc. I see you were referring specifically to those decisions within a family unit now, and yes that is very much a women's thing in the past.
Thanks Lindy! This video gets a like from me! :)
Please make a video about flaming arrows
I have heard this "inward/outward" power dialectic (In the Mediterranean and in Latin America) described similarly, but with the Spanish terms "casa / calle" , the woman's sphere of influence being in the house (or "casa"), and the men's sphere being on the street (or "calle")
Interesting to see what may be the classical roots of that power split. And I'd never heard of the "Oikos", thanks for sharing!
Given that, in Japan (yes, there's this country again), this system still works and it still cultivated, it might mean one or both two things:
1. Women and men are predisposed, biologically, for these roles.
2. This "trend" is much older than the Greeks and was possibly born before migration from Africa, or even before humans fully evolved.
Or maybe its just a good and useful system that multiple peoples ended up with convergently.
The basic reason is that men are biologically stronger (on average) while women give birth and can breast-feed their children. Thus during conflict (which were frequent in ancient times) men went to war while women stayed at home. Hence this distinction between the man taking care of the outside business while the woman manages the inside. In today's world though this separation doesn't make sense since a lot of things changed.
MrTrollaid The change you mentioned is important. In developed countries today the majority of people's lives won't be overly dangerous, so the advantage of strength is pretty meaningless most of the time. 1 on 1 duels to the death and week long hunts don't really happen anymore.
*****
Because one man and ten women make ten babies, while ten men and one women make one baby. You need fewer men, so men do the dangerous work.
It might not be either, never underestimate the power of convergent social evolution. It could simply be that it's a really effective system and the groups who randomly happened upon it were more successful.
This video is surprisingly well received.
After watching this, a question came up in my mind.
When did the proces start that, eventually after many ages, made woman's emancipation and the equal rights strugle necessary?
My understanding is that it occurred after the emancipation of the lower class men. The general male population only got a say (barring violent uprising) in very recent history. And shortly thereafter the women did as well.
One more very intresting video.
Just a note though, "OI" in Greek is pronounced as a single "E". It is actually pronounced like ecos (ΔΦΑ : /ˈi.kɔs/)
Keep up the good work! I really enjoyed waching this and prompted quite a fiery discussion with some of my friends.
I think you forgot the best part....
Stay with your example: The man with the four sons and the four daughters. The daughters don´t vanish with their marriage. They will be sisters to each others and daughters to their mother, won´t they? And as you pointed out in your other video, women gossip. They will stay connected. And as every of this women will have her own secret power over her husband (did Homer have a word for husband?) I strongly suspect, that a lot of the foreign affairs will be solved by female connection. Just.... under the radar of history.
History mainly tells us what went wrong (if you presume that "peace and happiness" is right), so what we find in the history books is not what the bunch of female conspirers did if everything went well, but what men did, if it didn´t.
Sounds to feministic, doesn´t it?
I had never heard of this social structure before, very intriguing to say the least. More research is required. Thank you for the fascinating videos on such a wide range of topics. The videos on swords and other ancient weapons is what originally attracted me to your channel. I have also really enjoyed your videos on historicalish, emphasis on ish, movies. I was wondering if you could comment on a particular movie sequence in a recent movie. I was wondering what you would think of the use of the shield wall in the recent Hercules movie with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson specifically. Incidentally you look and act a lot like my favorite uncle, right down to the British accent. The name is James by the way and thank you again for your channel. I enjoy it immensely.
Oikos is pronounced 'i-kos' (like the i in 'it') by the way. Just had my girlfriend double check my pronunciation (She is Greek)
I was told it was pronounced as written by my classics teacher. Not sure if he studied the language, but it's worth noting that Old and Modern Greek are rather different.
Makes sense, since economy and ecology are derived from oikos. And yeah, my classical languages teacher also had it wrong. :)
Interabderian
From what I understand there is a difference in modern and ancient Greek pronunciation. At least from what I remember during Classics. Ancient tends to have a flatter way about it (if my memory serves) but not all pronunciation is different and I believe Oi is still pronounced with that 'ee' sound.
I was using Anglicised pronunciation. Possibly better to say it that way than have a stab at Greek and fail.
Lindybeige
That's fair, considering you were having enough trouble with it as it seems :D
I'm so glad I subscribed to this guy
Main point of this video oikos not oikios.
I will never feel bad again for my accent in japanese, german and english... also check out the IPA pronunciation, it helps a lot when dealing with "exotic" languages like greek and latin... and I love the topics of your channel, whether I agree or not, your points are well made ;)
Lloyd, I think you meant to say oikos.
Hey Lindy, don't know if someone already made a comment about that, but Oikos is pronounced ekos in english. We have many things that are pronounced like E. Οι, ει, η, ι, υι are all pronounced as e.
In Japan, the wife handles the money and pays all the bills and then gives the husband an allowance of spending money.
Graphic At least that is the traditional way. Since the crash at the end of 80s and the end of the salaryman (anglo-japanese for businessman, somebody working in a company) dream it started becoming impossible to have the wife be a housewife, that takes care after the kids and the man the breadwinner that hardly comes home, drinks beer in the evening and on weekends plays shougi with friends or takes the family to baseball or something. Since then the dynamics might have changed a bit, but there are still men that get ousted by their wives when the children grow up and people like that are unable to take care of themselves alone. Its just a tad bit more complex :)
***** Japan is one of the most flagrantly consumerist societies on earth right along with the United States.
***** Were people actually ever different? Arent we just building up unreal ideas about the past?
Marcel Koníček
No, we live in a bubble that came up since the 1965, everything was totally different before then.
The outward power mentioned such as wars, ambassador roles etc. where also of the high risk/reward kind and thus more exiting to read and write about I would imagine while people with inward power might not want to you write about their exiting exploits of manipulation or social backstabbing and they where in control of how much ink you had to write with.
The outward also makes for more interesting reading to outsiders and has multiple sources making it more likely to be copied enough to survive.
Is it wrong to compare an Oikos to the stereotypical American Mafia "family"?
I would say is more similar to the term "House" as used in medival terms for noble families... but good analogy!
That was really nicely put. One thing I would probably mention though is that women's inward power is much more subtle in nature - in most cases influence and manipulation rather than direct enforcement. That might be one of the reasons it was not written about - it was better for women to rule from the side and not stand in the spotlight much, while letting men grow their egos and feel all powerful. That's at least my observation in many modern households, maybe in some cultures of the past the customs and traditions made feminine power more out in the open.
One show which portrays what kind of power women posess is Game of Thrones. Funny to see a more realistic portrayal of female characters in fantasy than in most historical movies.
I cannot help but notice that just about every time you mention "women's power" you say that they had influence over the decisions of men. That really is not the same as making a decision and having the power yourself.
its a bit of a advantage and disadvantage if you look at it differently. influencing a males decision can and was done, which does have the downside of being the man's word in the end, but it also is somewhat a protective screen for the women that had the influence. if the decision met unexpected problems, the blame generally would fall on the person who supposedly made the choice, the man. while its true there was some very unfair point and blame both ways. it also opens that argument of ''naturally'' made for it. lets face it, no matter what you say the average man is bigger, stronger and usually faster then the average female. its just how we developed as a species. the superior muscle and size helped with hunting while it wasn't as needed for the women who typically managed the running of the tribe/cave or whatever (also note that studies show that cave women were about equal to the average man today in muscle mass while cave men had even more). so building on your strengths from developing as a species seems to be the reasoning here, decisions and ''physical'' activity falls on men, while resource management and structure inside the system the man might lead was the woman's domain of control. think modern problem is people believe in equality which is great, but nothing is equal. just because you believe you are an equal to usain bolt doesn't mean you can run as fast as him or think mathematically like Stephen Hawking. we all excel in different areas and the 2 genders by way of species growth over time have just become more focused on the regions they effect more.
Influence over others is power. I suppose you can say that influence over yourself is freedom.
You're right, making decisions and influencing other's decisions are different; both are important though. An adviser to a king might not be the king, however, if his opinion is considered important then he is important.
Well look at it this way. Lobbyists in the American political system have no decision-making power, yet their _influence_ over the political process is held to be very large and very powerful. So powerful in fact that many people today believe we should start taking drastic steps to legally limit their influence.
Influence IS power.
Yes i agree with that, they should legally limit a woman's power as well then
Very informative and educational as always. :D
To put it simply, you pronounce "oikos" like "ecos". Because "oikonomia" and "economy" are the same word.
Your comment just helped me realize that one word root in my language is directly related to Greek.
Yay?..
I thought that the pronunciation changed, and it the o sound dropping is from modern greek...
How do you know oikonomia would be pronounced the same way economy is today. In German the word for economy is pronounced in much the same way Lindy wished to pronounce oikos...
IdentityCrisis I know how oikonomia is pronounced because I'm Greek.
The Ancient Greeks also pronounced it the same way.
Oikos is pronounced like ecos, exactly.
Even the intonation is the same.
Oikos means house in more formal Greek.
+Carbon 12
Yeah, you would think that, but in our language we have many vowels and combinations of consonants and vowels that have exactly the same pronunciation.
This goes way back to how our alphabet was created and evolved throughout the ancient times, but suffice it to say that written words carry meaning that spoken ones don't.
If you add to that the, no longer taught, 4 different punctuation marks that were being used in ancient greek and were dependent on the surrounding text, and it gets quite complicated indeed...
Apparently, in ancient greek, context was just as important as meaning, and all those different spellings and punctuation marks helped preserve context, in some way... I can't quite understand how it worked, I was never good with languages.
Sounds that the Oikos is similar to the Norse "Felag" ("Fe" means cattle or animals that was how wealth was measured so it also means wealth. "Lag" means combine, combination, together or team. So Felag means "wealth of the team" or "combined wealth". Quite similar to the modern Swedish word "Bolag" meaning company).
It is pronounced "/ikos/"! Letters "o" and "i" together it pronounced "/i/" in greek
Ikos. Ecology. So much of modern English comes from the Greek and Latin...
+TheBoldImperator well that one come from the French ecologie which come from the greek
(probably).
in modern Greek, but not in classical Greek. 2500 years ago they would have said /oikos/
Erik Roggeman How do you know that? Prononciation back then may have been very very diffenrent and we will never know.
Because I've got in on tape! No seriously, there is a thing called linguistical science where people spend years trying to retrace and find evidence of the evolution of word pronunciation. And Greek has been very well documented since it belongs to one of the founding cultures of Europe. Sounds shift over the course of years, but they leave all kinds of traces everywhere. So yes, we can know.
I found this to be very a insightful and interesting discussion. Thanks!
Lindy, this simply isn't correct. Women were subjected to the head, kyrios ('master') of the household. If he died, the oldest son became the head of the family, and they had to obey him, their own son! They weren't even allowed to own a lot of things (hell, they didn't even receive citizenship) - what makes you think they would get to decide expenses? Maybe they did for things the citizens didn't care about.
It's also not the frequency of certain actions you should be looking at but their *impact*. If the Strategoi decide to send me off to war to Sparta that's going to have a bigger impact on me than the wife deciding what's for supper over the course of well... my whole life.
The point you make about match-making is particularly nauseating because whether people 'would make a good match' wasn't the issue, in fact it was irrelevant: it was a purely political issue that decided whether they made a good match and that could be gauged and decided by men perfectly well. Source: my history teacher (master's degree) and my history mentor...
I'm sorry to say this man I like you and all but too often do you seem to interpret history by looking for 'what would have made sense' compared to 'what was the way it actually was' and end up with a far too subjective view... When you have this many viewers you simply can't afford to spread incorrect information like that.
Finally someone with common sense! Women had "power" over things men didn't feel like bothering with. And yet despite this, if a man wanted to have the final say, it was still his word over hers. Same for matchmaking, men would also play matchmaker for their daughters (sometimes would marry them to their friends) because arranged marriages were primarily for power for the family and it was the father's permission that was really required. It disgusts me that this guy paints not being allowed to participate in politics or really decide anything in your life as "power".
It's just so sad that your comment will lay at the bottom because guys would much rather eat up this guy's imaginary version of history where women were totally not subjugated and treated like property and real historians just overreact to everything apparently.
Your source is your 'history teacher'? Well aren't I fucking swayed. They sound like brilliant people and you're just as admirable.
You complain that the history isn't 'the way it actually was', and it's your history teacher. Lemme guess: is she a chick? The concept of citizenship differs than what we see it today. It varies on what part you visit. You state that 'they weren't allowed to own a lot of things', and offer no examples.
You simply can't spread misinformation like that. What part of Greece are we talking about? Athens? Sparta? Crete?
We get it, we get it. It was a gay paradise, too.
***** Dude, you need to stop. You can't even tell the difference between Ancient Greece and Ptolemaic Egypt and you literally tried to justify Greek sexism and slavery. You lied that you're a woman and you didn't offer a single counterargument to this guy's claims, despite him even using terms you could easily Google to check. You literally said anti-sufragettes were right. Why are you humiliating yourself like this? Why are you denying historical facts from people who know what they're talking about when you've never read a book on ancient Greece in your life? What issues in your life would possibly compel you to be pathetic like this when we both know you're completely ignorant in this area?
***** If you thought for a moment I was going to take that comment seriously, you were wrong.
***** If you thought for a moment that I was going to take you seriously, you were wrong.
Et tu, darling?
Love the video its almost an entire summary of one of the units in my classical civilization A level :)
Really nice videos, here! I'm part from the Maldive Islands, which, back in the day also were an excellent representation of the 'Inward power' in society.
Though, because these were small coral islands where fishery was basically the only job men had, the matriarchal aspect of their social structure was even more prominent. Farming (yams and the few vegetables that could grow in the island soil) was done by the women, so was processing the food the men fished as well as making rope and handicrafts for the men.
And even though they practiced a light form of Islam, when there was a marriage, the man would move to the woman's house.
Now that I think of it, the female dominance of households is still very dominant in much of South Asia and South East Asia. You don;t need to go to Homeric Greece to find examples!
PS: sorry for typos because it's 4 am. Thanks again for the videos! Love 'em!
As to the tangential powers(thank you for having me looking that definition up finally, btw), I'd say... Uh... Nothing to say. I believe you covered them all? What's not done by women has to be done by men. It's just the fact that we focus on only one aspect of any victory or deed, and completely disregard the part their spouses played in said victory.
Dear Lloyd,
I do love your work and that's why I make this comment. I know I came 2 years late, but let me help with the pronunciation of Greek. I know that by seeing the word "Οίκος" what you'd think is to translate letter for letter to Latin and read what you have, but actually, in Greek if you find the letters "ο" and "ι" together, they are pronounced "e". So what you're looking for is like the word "echo" with an "s" at the end. My apologies if my phonetic notes were not up to par, but I hope it was at least a little helpful :)
Free tips for future reference: Same thing happens with the letters "ε" and "ι" if found together, they are also pronounced "e". However, if the "ι" is written like this: ϊ In that case you always pronounce each letter separately, so the way you pronounced the word Oikos in your video would actually be "Οϊκος". The double vowel thingy in Greek is a bit tricky. I'd be happy to give you the full explanation if you need it. You may or may not need this information in the future and you might as well already know it, but here goes.
Thanks for the great videos and the hours of research you put into them. Take care :)
It's pronounced ikos and the modern translation is home, the difference is that families were larger thus the people living in a home were not so closely related... but oikos is the equivalent of spiti the way home is the equivalent of house, oikos means house but it also meant more. Something that perhaps may clarify things is that the first part of the word oikogenia (family) is oikos and the second is genos witch means your family tree (loosely translated). I know I probably confused more than I helped but not only some Greek words carry some underlying meaning but also the words themselves derive from weird word roots... Genos for instance comes from the Geek word Genisi (you might know as Genesis) and means birth.
very good and informative video as always
thx
i am afraid i am going to break your heart lindybeige, but the greek pronunciacion for the letters "oi" is "i" as in linen or linda or lindybeige :) (not as in light or icon etc). so oikos is pronounced "ikos". when people first transplanted that word from greek to english they wrote it with an "e". ecology and economy for instance have ikos inside them. they are translations of ther greek οικολογια and οικονομια.
I didn't realise you watched Vlogbrothers, Lindy!
Interesting word, Oikiosk, I'll remember it 'till I die, I promise.
lol
I find the "einater" part particularly interesting. There's a sayig in linguistics, "Languages code best what speakers do most.". Applied to this case, it would seem that the ancient greeks simply didn't talk much about "wives" (not in the way we do anyways), and that the concept of a "wife" wasn'st very important to them. However, this concept of "the wives of brothers" did have its own word, suggesting that in the mind of the ancient greeks, that was an important and relevant distinction. This seems to support Lindy's notion about inward power from a linguistic (and, dare I say it, psychological) point of view.
Say lindybeige a very off topic question but I have been wondering about the Swiss Saber. I have seen replicas of the swords and was wondering if you know anything about the sword and what it preps was back when people use the thing.
I would add that the reason men were responsible for the "outward facing" activities was because those activities tended to be dangerous - war, travel, diplomacy - and biologically speaking, men are more expendable than women, as you discuss in the video on "Sex power - why women were different and men were expendable"
4:48 The bit about the powerful coalition of einaters reminds me of the "sex strike" in the play Lysistrata
as a greek this was too funny
especially when he said oy-kos... YESSSSSSSS
well the word is e-kos... in the greek language we have... lets say a few letters and combination of letters for the sound of "e" : i, h, y, ei, oi... all those are read with the same sound.
This is really intresstning, may i have reference so i can read about this topic? :)
hahahaha Hectacre :P I take it you watch vlogbrothers? splendid video by the way!
The Oikos determined what was conceivable in the greater world and provided a foundation for what was achievable.
You say trade between oikoses (oikoi?) was handled by men, but household economic management was handled by women. What was the distinction between theses tasks? Was there any overlap?
+Tobin Holcomb Women would determine how much food you needed because they were in control of the cooking. They would give anything they felt was not required to the men to trade for more resources. If the household had more than enough carrots, they'd send the men to the ranch down the road to trade them for milk and cheese. If they had a potter, they'd send the men to trade those for a cow or whatever else they thought would work.
Gossip, I believe, was also used to by women to find out who had too many resources or needed something. This meant the men could focus on the task of getting the stuff there, trade them, and come home for dinner. The women already did their share of the work finding the information to begin with. Then the men could focus on the fields again without having to take the time to figure everything out on their own.
I think that's kind of what it meant.
Very interesting, kind of curious that they didn't teach me that in school.
Do we get to see the the surprise elemental, then??? And maybe some runners-up?
I did that video. Go to my channel page and you'll find it, or there was a link to it on the end-plate to my last video on this topic.
Lindybeige Oh! Missed it! Sorry... I shall go and see what marvels you received :)
Interesting video. I feel that we have been pushing this underdogness (and women being fully underpower of men) narrative on history in recent times. Very interesting to see fresh take on the matter.
Wow! That is really interesting idea. Women always influenced global events by affecting decisions of their ruling consort. In Europe at least AFAIK.