Land Ownership at Sparta
Spartan women, like men, could own land1 privately.
Ordinary coined money2 was deliberately banned to try to discourage the accumulation of material goods,
but the ownership of land remained extremely important in Spartan society. More and more
land came into the hands of women in later Spartan history
because the male
population declined3 through losses in war, especially during the Classical Age. Moreover, Spartan
women with property enjoyed special status as a result of the Spartan law forbidding the
division of the portion of land originally allotted to a family. This law meant that, in
a family with more than one son, all the land went to the eldest son. Fathers with
multiple sons therefore needed to seek out brides for their younger sons who had
inherited land and property from their fathers because they had no brother surviving.
Otherwise, younger sons, inheriting no land from their own family, might fall into dire
poverty.
