As shocking as pederasty is in modern times, in ancient Greece, it was a bisexual relationship that had social status, between an adult man and a teenage male. This was the most common during the Classical and Archaic periods of Greek history, and it has been traced back in history to the ritual of initiation – specifically the rituals that took place on Crete that were connected to admission into life in the military and Zeus' religion. Referred to as paiderastia by the Greeks, it was both lauded and reviled in contemporary works of the day. In Iliad and Odyssey, it does not formally appear, although the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in Iliad does raise some eyebrows in that regard. It seems to have developed during the latter part of the 7th century BCE, a time that also featured the first images of nudity in athletic competitions and in artistic representations (Koehl, p. 18). It also featured aristocratic marriage that took place later than in earlier times, symposia, and separation of men and women in social situations. At its height, it was called “the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens” (Dover, p. 78).
The degree to which these relationships were sexual in nature doubtless depended on local cultural factors and individual proclivities. When “pederasty” is used in modern English, it carries the connotation of the sexual abuse of young people, but the laws governing sexual behavior in Athens during that time period did not address such factors as age and consent. Indeed, many historians have noted that viewing the situation from the point of view of 21st century morality is problematic. The simple fact is that, during the Greece of that time period, the pederastic relationship was not taboo. As reprehensible as we might find it in modern times, it was acceptable during that time period, and does not appear to have aroused significant moral outrage during the period of time in which it occurred.
The Greek word paiderastia takes the feminine gender and is an abstract noun. The word comes from a compound of the word pais (child) and erastes (love). In the classic Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, it is defined as “the love of boys,” even though pais can be a boy or a girl. The words “erastes” and “eromenos” have become “the standard terms for the two pederastic roles”(Dover, p. 56). The root source of all of these words is eros and ero (“to love”). The erastes, or the dominant or more active partner, could be as young as his early twenties, while the eromenos, or the submissive partner, was at least a teenager, if not older, and so the difference in age was not always as significant as has been suggested (Davidson, p. 27). A synonym for eromenos was pais – again, the word for child, but in the sense of a citizen of the future, not a sobriquet indicating inferiority in any way. It could be considered roughly equivalent to a term of endearment that might come from a parent, although the relationship was radically different.
In the representations that appear in Greek poetry and philosophy, the eromenos is depicted as an ideal form of youth. A typical form was the kouros, a male nude statuary with long, flowing hair. The perfect eromenos was described as “a beautiful creature without pressing needs of his own. He is aware of his attractiveness, but self-absorbed in his relationship with those who desire himthe inner experience of an eromenos would be characterized, we may imagine, by a feeling of proud self-sufficiency” (Davidson, p. 113). According to several scholars, the contrast in roles between the active erastes and the passive eromenos was a difference that was particularly important. However, the two words were never meant to be used as technical terms referring to those two particular roles in the relationship, and they also appear in Greek texts as the terms for “lover” and “beloved” in heterosexual couples, as well as homosexual couples in which the members are of the same age.
In its earliest forms, pederasty on Crete took the form of an initiation that had to do with a ritual form of abduction. A man would choose an adolescent male and get that male's friends to help him spirit him to an andreion, which was a type of meeting area or club for men. The adolescent would then receive gifts from the man, called a philetor (“lover”), and the two of them, along with the adolescent's friends, would go out into the countryside for a couple of months, hunting and feasting together. Upon their return, the philetor would give the adolescent an ox, military clothing, and a cup to drink from. These three customary gifts were followed by other expensive ones. The ox would be sacrificed to Zeus, and the adolescent and his friends would feast together. Other gifts that went along with this relationship included outfits that set him aside as kleinos (“famous, renowned”). Now, the adolescent was referred to as a parastatheis (literally “he who stands beside”). In the andreion, he would stand beside his philetor and serve him from the cup that had been given to him as a gift (Keuls, p. 77-79).
In stark contrast to this relationship is the insistence on serial monogamy that has taken root in the United States. There are several theories as to why this practice took hold in this country, such as the combination of an insistence on following Puritan values and believing in a hard work ethic. Another theory is the “Male Compromise Theory,” which suggests that serial monogamy keeps the elite men in a society pacified, and also maximizes the quality (if not quantity) of reproduction (Lagerlof, p. 237). One intriguing element of societies with serial monogamy is that the practice of divorce will become simpler over time (Clark and Crompton, p. 22). Clearly, while the practice of serial monogamy might seem to be more focused on maintaining honesty and integrity in a relationship, the fact that couples during the history of the United States have consistently pushed for easier access to divorce, and that more and more couples are choosing to live together without getting married, shows that the institution of serial monogamy is both intimidating at the outset and difficult to maintain over time. While it is difficult to argue that marriage (or monogamous relationships) are any more oppressive than a marriage in ancient Greece in which the wife had to put up with her husband’s affairs with an eronemos, it is not so difficult to argue that maintaining one relationship with one person, over time, has proven to be an extremely difficult challenge throughout history.
Works Cited
Clark, Warren and Crompton, Susan. “Till Death Do us Part? The Risk of First and Second Marriage
Dissolution.” Study for Statistics Canada. Web. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-008-
XIE/2006001/main_death.htm
Davidson, James. The Greeks and Greek Love. New York: Orion, 2006.
Dover, Kenneth. Greek Homosexuality. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1978.
Keuls, Eva. The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. New York: Orion, 1985.
Koehl, Robert B. “Ephoros and Ritualized Homosexuality in Bronze Age Crete;" in Queer
Representations: Reading Livers, Reading Cultures; Martin Duberman, ed. New York: New
York University Press, 1997
Lagerlof, N. “Pacifying Monogamy.” Journal of Economic Growth Vol. 15 (3): pp. 235-262.
