SPARTAN GAMOS IN THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
SPARTAN GAMOS IN THE CLASSICAL PERIOD

Summary/Abstract: ‘Nous ne savons pas si l’union matrimoniale a Sparte s’accomplissait comme a Athenes, par une šgg?hsiV suivi de l’žkdosiV de la jeune mariee’. This question, posed by Karabelias almost thirty years ago, in today’s orthodox view has seemingly been resolved. Hodkinson, for instance, in his excellent synthesis, writes as follows: ‘In the classical period, in contrast [to the archaic period – R.K.], the wedding ceremony was a mute affair, involving a secretive ritual seizure following a privately arranged betrothal’. This view is now almost universally accepted; yet, as Cynthia Patterson observes, ‘Plutarch’s often-cited account of the clandestine abduction of the transvestite bride, however, is not supported by classical authors, who seem to imply the existence of ordinary marriage arrangements, at least among those elite households of which we have record’.

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