Pericles Funeral Oration Essay

I do not think that everything Pericles said in his funeral Oration was true. Pericles goes on and on about how great the Athens city-state had become a strong democratic government. â€Å"He also talks about how they accept everyone into their city-state and give them the same rights as the Athens people regardless if they are foreigners†. â€Å"Pericles even compares his city-state to that of the Spartans; while using slanderous and defaming words to describe their culture†. Pericles believes from reading his Oration that the Athens are better people because of their equally of all in their city state and the freedom they have given their people. Pericles fails to see the contradiction in the culture and in the oration of the Speech he gives about the Athens way of life and this is because he is biased towards the men. Obviously everyone being equal is not true because woman is not equal to men and is certainly not treated as equals. â€Å"Pericles states himself that it is better for woman to never be spoken of whether it is glory or criticism†. He states that a woman’s place is in her home, the only jobs that are available to women are to bare children and to maintain the household, other than that everything else only a man should and could do. The fact that women are treated differently proves that the Athens were not a democratic state their laws to provide fairness to all the people were only catered to the males not the females. The Athens had a negative attitude towards woman and how they should be treated, Pericles seemed almost disgusted to even have to address woman in his speech and when he did he had nothing positive to say about them. Pericles exaggerates in his oration. He depicts a perfect picture of what the Athens society is thought to be, as if the people and the law have no imperfections that need to be spoken of. He illustrates a great city-state with no flaws but then continues to describe and speak of women as if they were not human and discrimination against them was normal. Pericles was in mourning and wanted to give the dead soldiers and their families and all the people of the city-state the honor and confidence they needed to continue on with the war so he exaggerated, he did not want to dishonor the soldier with his words so he chose to speak of their culture and everything they stood for. Coming from a leader’s perspective I think the ideology may be slightly off but much of it was true from the Athens culture and society.