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| Agoge |
AgogeThe Agoge was a rigorous education and training regime undergone by every Spartan male except for the heirs to the kingships. Supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical Spartan law-giver Lycurgus it trained boys from the age of 7 to 18. It involved education, military training, hunting, dance and social preparation. Boys were taken from the family home and from then on lived in groups and encouraged to owe their loyalty to their communal mess hall rather than their families.
A form of institutionalised pederasty was practised whereby older warriors would be paired with a teenage student. This bond was considered important in passing on knowledge and in maintaining loyalty on the battlefield. The agoge focused exclusively on producing new generations of soldiers.
Girls also apparently had a form of state education involving dance and sport amongst other subjects.
Category:Sparta
Sparta: For other uses see: Sparta (disambiguation)
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Sparta (Greek Σπάρτη) was a city in ancient Greece, whose territory included, in Classical times, all Laconia and Messenia, and which was the most powerful state of the Peloponnesus. It is also the name of a modern town some kilometres away from the ancient site. (Technically, Sparta was the name of the ancient town; Lacedaemon, Greek Λακεδαιμων, was the city-state. Sparta is now normally used for both.)
The city of Sparta lies at the northern end of the central Laconian plain, on the right bank of the river Eurotas. The site was strategically located; guarded from three sides by mountains and controlling the routes by which invading armies could penetrate Laconia and the southern Peloponnesus via the Langhda Pass over Mt Taygetus. At the same time, its distance from the sea—Sparta is 27 miles from its seaport, Gythium—made it difficult to blockade.
Nearest places
- Mystras (west)
- Magoula (northwest)
History
Main article: History of Sparta
Sparta had the best army in ancient Greece; and was the most powerful state before the rise of Athens, a naval power, after the Persian Wars. Sparta and Athens were reluctant allies against the Persians, but became rivals thereafter. The greatest series of conflicts between the two states, which resulted in the dismantling of the Athens Empire, is called the Peloponnesian War. Athenian attempts to control Greece and take over the Spartan role of 'guardian of Hellenism' ended in failure. The first ever defeat of a Spartan hoplite army at full strength occurred at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. By the time of the rise of Alexander the Great in 336 BC, Sparta was a shadow of its former self, clinging to an isolated independency. She was eventually forced into the Achaean League.
Spartans continued their way of life even after the Roman conquest of Greece. The city became a tourist exhibit for the Roman elite who came to observe the "unusual" Spartan customs. Following the disaster that befell the Roman Imperial Army at the Battle of Adrianople, the Spartan phalanx met and defeated a force of raiding Visigoths in battle. This is considered the last noteworthy deed of the Spartans.
Constitution
We know little of the internal development on Sparta. Many Greeks believed there had been none, and that "the stability of the Spartan constitution" had lasted unchanged from the days of Lycurgus. The Spartans had no historical literature or written laws, which last were, according to tradition, expressly prohibited by an ordinance of Lycurgus. The Doric state of Sparta, copying the Doric Cretans, developed a mixed governmental state. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families, equal in authority, so that one could not act against the veto of his colleague, though the Agiad king received greater honour in virtue of the seniority of his family (Herod. vi. 5).
There are several legendary explanations for this unusual dual kingship, which differ only slightly; for example, that King Aristodemus had had twin sons, who agreed to share the kingship, and this became perpetual. Modern scholars have advanced various theories to account for the anomaly. Some theorize that this system was created in order to prevent absolutism, and is paralleled by the analogous instance of the dual consuls at Rome. Others believe that it points to a compromise arrived at to end the struggle between two families or communities, or that the two royal houses represent respectively the Spartan conquerors and their Achaean predecessors: those who hold this last view appeal to the words attributed by Herodotus (v. 72) to Cleomenes I: "I am no Dorian, but an Achaean;" although this is usually explained by the (equally legendary) descent of Aristodemus from Hercules.
The duties of the kings were mainly religious, judicial and military. They were the chief priests of the state, and performed certain sacrifices and also maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, which always exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus (about 450 BC), their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses, adoptions and the public roads. Civil cases were decided by the ephors, and criminal jurisdiction had been passed to the ephors, as well as a council of elders. The dual kings' power was exercised mostly in the military sphere, rather than in the judicial sphere.
Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. I285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24). Here also, however, the royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. Dating from the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war, and was accompanied on the field by two ephors. He was supplanted also by the ephors in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figure-heads except in their capacity as generals. Real power was transferred to the ephors and to the gerousia. Causes for this change lay partly in the fact that the ephors, chosen by popular election from the whole body of citizens, represented a democratic element in the constitution without violating those oligarchical methods which seemed necessary for the state's administration. They also lay partly in the weakness of the kingship, the dual character of which inevitably gave rise to jealousy and discord between the two holders of the office, often resulting in a practical deadlock. Another cause lay in the loss of prestige suffered by the kingship, especially during the 5th century, owing to these aforementioned quarrels, to the frequency with which kings ascended the throne as minors making the creation of regencies necessary. The dual kingship's prestige also suffered due to the fact that the kings were, rightly or wrongly, suspected of having taken bribes from the enemies of the state at one time or another.
Military service and training
The origins of the powers exercised by the assembly of the citizens, or apella, are virtually unknown, due to the paucity of historical documentation. The ordinary Spartan was essentially a soldier, trained to obey and endure; he became a politician only if chosen as ephor for a single year. He could be elected a life member of the council after his sixtieth year, in which he would be free from military service.
Sparta was, above all, a military state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a child was brought before the elders of the tribe, who decided whether it was to be reared or not. If found defective or weakly, the baby was dropped off a cliff called the Apothetae, or Place of Rejection. In this way attempts were made to secure the maintenance of high physical standards in Sparta. From the earliest days of the Spartan, the claim on his life by the state was absolute and strictly enforced.
Until the age of seven, boys were educated at home and were taught to fight their fears as well as general superstition by their nurses, who were prized in Greece. Their training was then undertaken by the state in the agoge system and supervised by the paidonomos, an official appointed for that purpose. This training consisted for the most part in physical exercises, such as dancing, gymnastics, and ball-games, with music and literature occupying a subordinate position. This tireless emphasis on physical training gave Spartans the reputation for being "laconic," short in words, a word derived from the name of their homeland of Laconia. Education was also extended to girls. Both sexes exercised naked. Women, however, could not compete according to the Olympic rules. There were also contests to see who could take the most severe flogging, an ordeal known as diamastigosis.
At the age of thirteen, young men were sent off into the countryside with nothing, and were expected to survive on wits and cunning. This was very probably, in origin, an old initiation rite, a preparation for their later career as elite soldiers.
At the age of twenty, the Spartan began his military service and his membership in one of the dining messes or clubs (in Greek 'syssition' or 'phyidition'), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member and where all meals were taken. The Spartan exercised the full rights and duties of a citizen at the age of thirty. Only native Spartans were considered a full citizen, and needed to undergo the training as prescribed by law, and participation in and contribution to one of the dining-clubs. Those who fulfilled these conditions were considered peers, (homoioi) citizens in the fullest sense of the word, while those who failed were called lesser men, and retained only the civil rights of citizenship.
Spartiates were absolutely debarred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the periokoi, and were forbidden (in theory) to possess either gold or silver. Spartan currency consisted of bars of iron, thus making thievery and foreign commerce very difficult and discouraging the accumulation of riches. Wealth was, in theory at least, derived entirely from landed property, and consisted in the annual return made by the Helots, who cultivated the plots of ground allotted to the Spartans. But this attempt to equalize property proved a failure: from the earliest times, there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became even more serious after the law of Epitadeus, passed at some time after the Peloponnesian War, removed the legal prohibition of the gift or bequest of land. Helots were ruthlessly controlled, primarily through the secret police or Krypteia.
Women were more independent than in other Greek societies, and were able to negotiate with their husbands to bring their lovers into their homes. According to Plutarch in his work Life of Lycurgus, men both allowed and encouraged their wives to bear the children of other men, due to the general communal ethos which made it more important to bear many progeny for the good of the city, than to be jealously concerned with one's own family unit. For this reason, Plutarch claims that the concept of "adultery" was alien to the Spartans, and relates that one ancient Spartan had said that it was as possible to find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain top and drink from a river below, as to find an adulterer in Sparta.
Pederasty, a social practice common throughout Greece, was equally so in Sparta. The Spartans believed that encouraging the older, accomplished men of the city to have relations with the youths was conducive to their education. Consequently, the title of the older lover was eispnelas, "inspirerer," and for the younger beloved, aitas, "hearer." Cicero asserts that, "The Lacedaemonians, while they permit all things except outrage [hybris, "rape"] in the love of youths, certainly distinguish the forbidden by a thin wall of partition from the sanctioned, for they allow embraces and a common couch to lovers.' (De Rep., iv. 4)
Another anecdote in Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus relates the story of a Spartan magistrate who was fined by the city because his young male lover had cried out while he was fighting, which was considered to be a sign that the young man was overly effeminate and had therefore not been properly educated by his distinguished lover. Male-to-male relationships served as a way to reinforce the masculine education of the Spartan boys.
Full citizens, released from any economic activity, were given a piece of land (klaros), which was cultivated and run by the Helots. As time went on, greater portions of land were concentrated in the hands of large landholders, but the number of full citizens decreased over time. Citizens had numbered 8,000 at the beginning of the 5th century BC, but had decreased by Aristotle's day to less than 1,000, and had further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BC. Attempts were made to remedy this situation by creating new laws. Certain penalties were imposed upon those who remained unmarried or who married too late in life. These laws, however, came too late and were ineffective in affecting the general trend.
Archaeology
There is a well-known passage in Thucydides which runs thus:
:"Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame.
:"Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show" (i. 10, trans. Jowett).
The first feeling of most travellers who visit modern Sparta is one of disappointment with the ancient remains. A better "show" is put on by Byzantine Mistra, with its grass-grown streets, its decaying houses, its ruined fortress and its beautiful churches. Until the early twentieth century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the theatre, of which, however, little showed above ground except portions of the retaining walls; the so-called Tomb of Leonidas, a quadrangular building, perhaps a temple, constructed of immense blocks of stone and containing two chambers; the foundation of an ancient bridge over the Eurotas; the ruins of a circular structure; some remains of late Roman fortifications; several brick buildings and mosaic pavements.
The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in the local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 (and enlarged in 1907). Excavations were carried on near Sparta, on the site of the Amyclaeum in 1890 by (?)Tsounas, and in 1904 by Furtwängler, and at the shrine of Menelaus in Therapne by Ross in 1833 and 1841, and by Kastriotis in 1889 and 1900. Organized digs were attempted in the area of Sparta proper; partial excavation of the round building was undertaken in 1892 and 1893 by the American School at Athens. The structure has been since found to be a semicircular retaining wall of Hellenic origin that was partly restored during the Roman period.
In 1904. the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia, and in the following year excavations were made at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia as several medieval fortresses were being surveyed. In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself, yielding many finds, which have been published in the British School Annual, vol. xii. sqq.
A small circus described by Leake proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after AD 200 round the altar and in front of the temple of Artemis Orthia. Here musical and gymnastic contests took place as well as the famous flogging ordeal (diamastigosis). The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BC, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead found in great profusion within the precinct range, dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BC., supply invaluable evidence for early Spartan art; they prove that Sparta reached her artistic zenith in the 7th century and that her decline had already begun in the 6th.
In 1907, the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (Chalkioikos) was located on the acropolis immediately above the theatre, and though the actual temple is almost completely destroyed, the site has produced the longest extant archaic inscription of Laconia, numerous bronze nails and plates, and a considerable number of votive offerings. The Greek city-wall, built in successive stages from the 4th to the 2nd century, was traced for a great part of its circuit, which measured 48 stades or nearly 10km. (Polyb. 1X. 21). The late Roman wall enclosing the acropolis, part of which probably dates from the years following the Gothic raid of 262 AD, was also investigated. Besides the actual buildings discovered, a number of points were situated and mapped in a general study of Spartan topography, based upon the description Pausanias. Excavations showed that the town of the Mycenean Period was situated on the left bank of the Eurotas, a little to the south-east of Sparta. The settlement was roughly triangular in shape, with its apex pointed towards the north. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left save ruined foundations and broken potsherds.
The Spartan world
Around the middle of the 6th century BC, the southern Peloponnese was Spartan territory. With an area of 8,050 square kilometres, it was the largest state in Greece. The territory was divided into two parts, Laconia and Messenia, which were separated by the Taygetos mountain range. Unlike other Greek cities, Sparta controlled much arable land. Earliest archeological evidence testifying settlement in Sparta dates from around 950 BC.
Classical sources tell us that Sparta was founded in the 10th century BC. It consisted of the four villages of Pitane, Mesoa, Limnai and Konooura, which were later united under one government.
Around 750 BC, Sparta began expanding slowly but steadily. The subjugated population of Laconia either became Helots or Periokoi. The Helots kept their farmland but were required to deliver half of their output to the Spartan state, while the Periokoi were inhabitants of cities that remained autonomous, save in matters of foreign affairs and military actions. The Periokoi formed a vital part of Spartan society. As Spartans were forbidden non-military pursuits and occupations, the Periokoi worked as traders, craftsmen, and artists. From 650 to 620 BC, Sparta brought Messenia under its control. In the first third of the 6th century. Sparta was defeated by the city of Argos and later by Tegea. It was against the backdrop of the Messenian war and the following defeats that the unique Spartan way of life developed, which made Sparta famous in Ancient Greece.
From 550 BC onwards, the goals of the Spartan cosmos – toughness of body and mind as well as military efficiency – seem to have been achieved. Sparta did not suffer under the rule of any tyrant or dictator, and its phalanxes were considered undefeatable. "Spartan" remains synonymous for anyone rigorously self-disciplined or courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity. However, Sparta was a nation closed off from the influence of other nations, with few foreign imports and ideas, creating a barren cultural world, devoid of great works of music and literature.
Modern Sparta
Prior to modern times, the site of Sparta was occupied by a relatively small village that lay in the shadow of Mystras, a more important (Byzantine) settlement nearby. In 1834, after the Greek War of Independence, King Otto of Greece decreed that a city was to be built on the site of Sparta and bear its name (pronounced Sparti in Modern Greek). The city was designed with the intention of creating one of the most beautiful cities in Greece through the use of tree-lined boulevards and parklands. At present, Sparta is the administrative capital of the prefecture of Laconia.
Sparta is the center of an agricultural plain whose focus is the Eurotas valley. It is the local center for the processing of goods such as citrus and olives.
See also
- Kings of Sparta
- Gymnopaedia
References
- W. G. Forest. A History of Sparta, 950-192 B.C.. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1968.
- Ernle Bradford. The Battle for the West-Thermopylae 480. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
External links
- [http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/greece/map/m1221342/sparta.html Traveljournals.net - Location of Sparta on world map]
- [http://www.gtp.gr/LocPage.asp?id=9773 GTP - Sparta]
- [http://www.gtp.gr/LocPage.asp?id=9772 GTP - Municipality of Sparta]
- [http://www.gtp.gr/LocPage.asp?id=61562 GTP - Ancient Sparta]
- [http://indexmundi.com/z/?lat=37.0733333=22.4297222&t=p&r=10220&p=sparti&cc=gr&c=greece.htm Indexmundi - Sparta]
- [http://spartajournal.atspace.org Sparta's Journal - An academic Journal for Sparta]
- [http://www.losttrails.com/pages/Hproject/Sparta/Sparta.html ancient Sparta] - extensive black and white photo-essays of the site and related artifacts
See also
- Communities of Laconia
Category:Ancient Greek cities
-
Category:Cities and towns in Greece
Category:Greek prefectural capitals
ja:スパルタ
PederastyPederasty as idealized by the ancient Greeks, was a relationship and bond between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family. In a wider sense it refers to erotic love and sexuality between adolescents and adult men. In those societies where pederasty is prevalent, it appears as one form of a widely practiced male bisexuality. In antiquity, pederasty as a moral and educational institution was practiced in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Rome to play the pipes
ca. 100 B.C. Found in Pompeii; Naples Archeological Museum; Photo: A. Calimach]]
Other forms of it were common, and also found among the Celts (as per Aristotle, Politics, II 6.6. Athen. XIII 603a) and among the Persians (as per Herodotus 1.135). More recently, it was widespread in Tuscany and northern Italy during the Renaissance. Outside of Europe, it was common in pre-Modern Japan until the Meiji restoration, in Mughal India until the British colonization, amongst the Aztecs prior to the Spanish conquest of Mexico and in China and Central Asia until the early 20th century. The tradition of pederasty persists to the present day in certain areas of Afghanistan, the Middle East, North Africa, and Melanesia.
Sexual expression between adults and adolescents is not well studied, and since the 1990's has been often confused with pedophilia. Such relationships raise issues of morality and functionality, agency for the youth, and parental authority. They may also raise issues of legality in those cases where the boy is below the age of consent. Though they have been deemed beneficial by, for example, ancient philosophers, Japanese samurai and modern writers such as Oscar Wilde, today many disapprove of them and claim that they have a negative effect on the psychological development of the youth. A study contradicting both positions, authored by Bruce Rind and others, was published by the American Psychological Association in 1998. See Historical pederastic relationships.
Etymology and usage
"Pederasty" derives from the combination of pais (Greek for 'boy') with erastis (Greek for 'lover'; cf. eros). Late Latin pæderasta was borrowed in the sixteenth century directly from Plato’s classical Greek in The Symposium. The word first appears in the English language in the Renaissance, as pæderastie (e.g.: in Samuel Purchas' Pilgrimage.), in the sense of sexual relations between men and boys.
In modern academic parlance, "pederasty" is used as a generic term to describe the cultural phenomenon of love relationships between men and adolescent boys, wherever encountered. However, dictionary definitions of the practice range from moralistic ones based on the Christian discourse on homosexuality (Oxford Compact Edition, 1971, gives, "Unnatural connexion with a boy; sodomy.") to ones focused on the mechanics of a sexual act (Merriam-Webster (on-line edition) gives, "Pederast: one that practices anal intercourse especially with a boy"). Definitions such as these have been criticized as "a homophobic hijacking of a word originally introduced as a polite, learned term, an alternative to ugly words like 'bugger' and 'Sodomite'"[http://www.bibliogay.com/navigate.php?dest=item_detail&v=1133914243_477171&itemID=995499632_470093&home=1]
The modern popular restriction of that definition to the sexual component of such relationships is also due on one hand to the primacy of sexological discourse in contemporary western culture, and on the other to the demise of pederasty as a social institution. Thus in its contemporary sense, pederasty figures as a sub-category of what some sexologists term ephebophilia, the attraction of an adult towards adolescents, regardless of sex. Nonetheless this medicalization of desire is not widely accepted, and these categories do not figure in any international catalogue of mental dysfunctions.
The Ancient World
ephebophilia
The Greeks
:For an in-depth treatment of the topic see Pederasty in Ancient Greece
The ancient Greeks, in the context of the pederastic city-states, were the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as an institution. The topic of pederasty was the subject of extensive analysis. Some of the principal dilemmas discussed were:
- Which form should pederasty take, chaste or erotic?
- Is pederasty right or wrong?
- Is pederasty better or worse than the love of women?
Pederastic relationships were dyadic mentorships. These mentorships were sanctioned by the state, and consecrated by the religious establishment. See Mythology of same-sex love The pederastic relationships also had to be approved by the boy's father. Boys entered into such relationships in their teens, around the same age that Greek girls were given in marriage. The mentor was expected to teach the young man or to see to his education, and to give him certain appropriate ceremonial gifts. Often such relationships took place in a military context. See Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece
Pederasty was the idealized form of an age-structured homoeroticism that, like all social institutions, had other, less idyllic, manifestations, such as prostitution or the use of one’s slave boys.
Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece-430 BCE; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.]]
Ancient sources suggest a range of sexual activity. Pederastic art usually shows the man standing, grasping the boy's chin with one hand and reaching to fondle his genitals with the other. Recent evidence suggests that there was, in fact, reciprocation of desire.
Pederastic relationships were known throughout ancient Greece. In Thebes, the practice was enshrined in the founding myth of the city. The Spartans required all their adult men to engage a boy in a pederastic relationship. The state benefitted from these relationships. The friendship functioned as a restraint on the youth, since if he committed a crime it was not he but his lover who was punished. In the military the lovers fought side by side, with each vying to shine before the other.
Pederastic couples were also said to be feared by tyrants, because the bond between the friends was stronger than that of obedience to a tyrannical ruler. Plutarch gives as examples the Athenians Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Others, such as Aristotle, claimed that some states encouraged pederasty as a means of population control, by directing love and sexual desire into non-procreative channels, a feature of pederasty later employed by other cultures, such as the Siwan, and perhaps the Melanesian.
Other venues
Melanesia
Pederasty in ancient times was not the exclusive domain of the Greeks. Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists states that the Persians also enjoyed the practice, as did the Celts who, despite the beauty of their women, preferred the love of boys. Some would regularly bed down on their animal skins with a boy on one side and a woman on the other.
In Roman times, pederasty largely lost its status as a ritual part of education – a process already begun by the increasingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan Greeks – and was instead seen as an activity primarily driven by one's sexual desires and competing with desire for women. The social acceptance of pederastic relations waxed and waned during the centuries, reaching its last zenith during the time of emperor Hadrian, who erected statues of his beloved and prematurely deceased Antinous throughout the Roman Empire.
The rise of Christianity led to the suppression of pederasty, as it was one of the mainstays of a classical pagan culture which the church fathers saw as an obstacle to their proselytizing. This campaign was rationalized by quotations from the Old Testament, where Leviticus condemned homosexual activities, as well as by appeals to long-standing Israelite tradition.
Post-classical and modern forms
Non-Western examples
Before the 20th century, relationships with a more or less pederastic element were the usual pattern of male same-sex love.
China
20th century
In tenth-century China courting male couples consisted of the older ch’i hsiung (契兄) and the younger ch’i ti. (契弟) (The terms mean, literally, sworn elder brother and younger brother. It is very common in the Chinese culture to conceptualize many kinds of alliances as fictive kinship relationships.) Boy marriages, which lasted for a set period after which the younger partner would find a wife (often with the help of the older one) appear to have been part of the culture in the province of Fujian in pre-modern times. The marriages were said to have been celebrated by the two families in traditional fashion, including the ritual "nine cups of tea." The popularity of these pederastic relationships in Fujian gave rise to one of the euphemistic expressions for same-sex love in China, "the southern custom." Men's sexual interest in youths was also reflected in prostitution, with young male sex workers fetching higher prices than their female counterparts as recently as the beginning of the twentieth century.
Japan
Fujian-style painted hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk. Private collection.]]
In Japan, the practice of shudo, the "Way of the Young" paralleled closely the course of European pederasty. It was prevalent in the religious community and samurai society from the medieval period on, and eventually grew to permeate all of society. It fell out of favor around the end of the 19th century, concurrently with the growing European influence.
Its legendary founder is Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism, who is said to have brought the teachings of male love over from China, together with the teachings of the Buddha. Monks often entered into love relationships with beautiful youths known as "chigo," which were recorded in literary works known as "chigo monogatari."
Early European visitors were struck by the openness and ubiquity of such relationships. The Portuguese Jesuit Alessandro Valegnani, in 1591 observed that, "the youths and their partners, not seeing the matter as grave, do not hide it. Indeed they find honor in it and speak of it openly. To wit, not only does the doctrine of the bonzes not view it as evil, but they themselves engage in this custom, seeing it as completely natural and even virtuous."
Australasia
In the Melanesia, many native cultures employed boy insemination rites integral to coming-of-age rituals lasting from mid- to late childhood, as documented in the writings of Gilbert Herdt. In Papua-New Guinea and nearby islands, some native tribes (about 20% at the end of the twentieth century, a proportion that is decreasing as contacts with foreigners cause western mores to become prevalent) consider sperm to be the essence of masculinity and a source of strength, and a substance that does not form spontaneously but must be introduced. As a result, a mentor, chosen by the father and ideally the mother's young adult brother, has the duty of planting it in the body of their prepubescent son as part of extended initiation rites.
The mentor also has the duty of educating the boy and seeing to his proper entry into manhood. They sleep and work together until the boy is mature. Men who have had their first or second child are expected to relinquish the mentoring function to younger adults. Casual encounters between boys and men are also accepted, but the boy must be the recipient, to avoid damaging his growth. Thus the Melanesian male would go through a sexual cycle beginning with homosexuality, passing through bisexuality and ending with heterosexuality.
India
The Mughal period saw strong pederastic influences in the arts and literature. Poetry in ghazal form was a favorite means of such expression, produced by poets such as Mir Taqi Mir.
Central Asia
Mir Taqi Mir. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.]]
In central Asia the practice is reputed to have long been widespread. In the Terminal Essay of his translation of the Arabian Nights, Richard Francis Burton notes that, "The Afghans are commercial travellers on a large scale and each caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman's attire with kohl'd eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and henna'd fingers and toes, riding luxuriously in Kajawas or camel-panniers: they are called Kuch-i safari, or travelling wives, and the husbands trudge patiently by their sides."
Though no longer widely practiced, such boy marriages nevertheless still occur. However, in part as a result of resurgent Islamic fundamentalism, they are less well received than in former times. In late 2005, the Afghan refugee Liaquat Ali, 42, and his Pakistani beloved, Markeen Afridi, 16, were both threatened with death by the tribal elders, subsequent to their public and ceremonial wedding in the Tribal Territories.[http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/afghan-tribesman-faces-death-for-wedding-to-teenage-boy/2005/10/06/1128562943177.html# (The Sydney Morning Herald)]
In the aftermath of the US-Afghan war, western mainstream media have reported derisively on patterns of adult/adolescent male relationships, documented in Kandahar in Afghanistan [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020128fa_FACT1 (The New Yorker)] and in Pakistan [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/07/11/open_secrets/ (The Boston Globe)], often conflating them with pedophilia. The youth in these relationships, usually in his early- to mid-teens, is known alternatively as haliq, "beautiful boy," or ashna, "dear friend," and the man as mehboob, "lover," from the Persian mohabbat, "love," related to its Arabic counterpart, mahabbâh. The prevalence of homosexual relationships in Kandahar and other Pashtun areas has been explained in these articles as a behavior resulting from strict gender segregation [http://web.archive.org/web/20030212233646/http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-040302halekon.story?coll=la-home-todays-times (Los Angeles Times)] and "without any moral or educational value."
These reports however have been characterized as "privileging a political spin over more precise and informative writing," and as suffering from ethnocentric bias [http://www.queer-journal.com/spring2004/essays1.htm (Stephanie Skier, in queer.).] Brian James Baer, writing in the Gay and Lesbian Review (March-April, 2003), claimed that "their subtext was clearly aimed at discrediting the Pashtun tradition by equating it with the ultimate American taboo, adult sex with minors," and that "Western journalists insisted on reducing relationships that are often long-term emotional bonds to a crude sexual bargain." In contrast, alternative media have carried accounts by native sources describing married men engaging youths in mutually affectionate long term relationships [http://www.trikone.org/store/magazine/download/2003-06-pg06.pdf (Trikone)].
gender segregation
Besides relationships following the pederastic model, cases of sexual brutality by men against youths - in this instance as one aspect of the military use of children - have also been documented. In Afghanistan, out of the thousands of Pakistani boys recruited by mullahs under the guise of jihad to fight for the Taliban, it is thought that about 1500 survived, only to be held for ransom in private jails, where they were being systematically abused [http://www.globalgayz.com/afghan-news01.html J. Gettleman in the L. A. Times, July 2001]. Also, commercial sexual exploitation of boys in Pakistan is reported to be widespread despite the fact that prostitution of minors is illegal and there is a death penalty for child abusers, according to the Bangkok-based international child protection campaign group, [http://www.ecpat.net/eng/index.asp ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes).]
In the northern, Turkic-speaking areas, one manifestation of the pederastic tradition were the entertainers known as bacchá (a Turkik Uzbeki term etymologically related to the Persian bachcheh, "boy" or "child", sometimes with the connotation of "catamite"). A bachá, typically an adolescent, was a performer practiced in erotic songs and suggestive dancing. He wore resplendent attire and makeup, and would also be available as a sex worker. These Muslim bachás were trained from childhood and carried on their trade until their beard began to grow. Though after the Russian conquest the tradition was suppressed by tsarist authorities, early Russian explorers were able to document the practice.
Middle East
Russian, Paris.]]
The construction of same-sex love in the Middle East has been influenced by its history and geography. Hellenistic elements can be recognized in the use of the wine boy as a symbol of homoerotic passion, and in such ideas as that pederasty is absent from primitive cultures since there a boy can learn all he needs from his father, but that people of high civilization require the erotic attraction of boys to motivate experienced men to teach the boys lovingly (found in the Rasa'il Ikhwan as-Safa', a tenth century Iraqi philosophical and religious encyclopedia).
Islam has been another force shaping the ways in which same-sex love is understood and practiced in the Middle East. Men are expected to be even more attracted to beautiful boys than to beautiful women, and religious injunctions exhort them to resist this temptation. It is related that the Prophet Muhammad enjoined his followers to "Beware of beardless youth for they are a greater source of mischief than young maidens." (Murray and Roscoe, 1997, passim)
Likewise, the great imam and legal scholar Sufyan At-Thawri (d. 783 CE) asserted, regarding sexual temptation, that "If every woman has one devil accompanying her, then a handsome lad has seventeen." At the same time, a hadith by the Prophet posits that chaste love grants one passage into paradise: "He who loves and remains chaste and conceals his secret and dies, dies a martyr." As a result, love for youths in Islam, far from being the path to perdition the Christians made of it, was an understandable passion which, if kept in check, raised one up to the heavens. Male love became a punishable offense only if one consummated it - and was caught at it, which required witnesses of four men or eight women. If one was not caught at it, however, one would still be punished in the fires of hell.
Sufi outlook
hadith.]]
hadith, Washington, DC.]]
The manifestations of pederastic attraction vary. At one extreme they are indeed of a chaste nature, incorporated into Islamic mysticism (see Sufism) as a meditation known in Arabic as Nazar ill'al-murd, "contemplation of the beardless," or Shahed-bazi, "witness play" in Persian. This is seen as an act of worship intended to help one ascend to the absolute beauty that is God through the relative beauty that is a boy. Modern Sufi thought asserts that this contemplation uses imaginal yoga to transmute erotic desire into spiritual consciousness.
In an illuminated manuscript of Sufi poet Abdul-Rahman Jami's (1414-1492) Haft Awrang [http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/loveyearning/base.html (see manuscript)], an anthology of seven alegorical poems on wisdom and love, there is a calligraphed verse in the section titled A Father Advises his Son About Love (in which a father instructs his son, when choosing a worthy male lover, to chose that man who sees beyond the mere physical and expresses a love for his inner qualities). The verse exemplifies one Sufi way of turning love into wisdom:
:I have written on the wall and door of every house
:About the grief of my love for you.
:That you might pass by one day
:And read the state of my condition.
:In my heart I had his face before me.
:With this face before me, I saw what I had in my heart.
Nazar was a principal expression of a male love that, according to the teachings, was not to be consummated physically.
Not all followed the teachings to the letter. On being challenged by Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya (c.717-801) of Basrah (Sufi woman saint who first set forth the doctrine of mystical love), upon noticing him kissing a boy, for appreciating the beauty of boys above that of God, the ascetic Sufi Rabah al-Qaysi retorted that, "On the contrary, this is a mercy that God Most High has put into the hearts of his slaves." (Abu 'Abdur-Rahman as-Sulami, pp. 78-79)
Conservative Islamic theologians condemned the custom of contemplating the beauty of young boys. Their suspicions may have been justified, as some dervishes boasted of enjoying far more than "glances", or even kisses. Nazar was denounced as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), who complained, "They kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God!" The real danger to conventional religion, as Peter Lamborn Wilson asserts, was not so much the mixing of sodomy with worship, but "the claim that human beings can realize themselves in love more perfectly than in religious practices." Despite opposition from the clerics, the practice has survived in Islamic countries until only recent years, according to Murray and Roscoe. See References section below
At the other extreme, non-sublimated pederastic relationships were widespread, and widely documented in the poetry and art of the cultures involved, including in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Libertine poets such as the Baghdad poet Abu Nuwas (750?–813?) flaunted their sexual conquests, often Christian wine boys, some of whom they plied with wine in order to subdue. (Kennedy 1997, pp.221,224)
Persia
Christian male dancers and female musicians. Fresco at Chehel Sotoun, Isfahan.]]
In Islamic Persia, where, as Louis Crompton claims, "boy love flourished spectacularly," art and literature also made frequent use of the pederastic topos. Omar Khayyám's (d. 1123) quatrains, Attar (d. 1220), Rumi (d. 1273), Sa'adi (d. 1291) in his Rose Garden, Hafez Shirazi (d. 1389) in his ghazals, Jami (d. 1492), and even Iraj Mirza (d. 1926) wrote works "replete with homoerotic allusions, as well as explicit references to beautiful young boys and to the practice of pederasty," as Janet Afary explains in her Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islam.
All these celebrate the love of the wine boy, as do the paintings and drawings of artists such as Reza Abbasi (1565 - 1635), whose patron was the Safavid Shah Abbas I (r.1588-1629). Much of the artistic output of the shah's workshops celebrated love between men and youths. He also ordered the building of Chehel Sotoun, "Forty Columns," in Isfahan, a pleasure palace decorated with many pederastic paintings on ceramic.
Thomas Herbert, the twenty one year old secretary to the English ambassador to Persia, later reported that at Abbas' court (some time between 1627 and 1629) he saw, "Ganymede boys in vests of gold, rich bespangled turbans, and choice sandals, their curled hair dangling about their shoulders, with rolling eyes and vermilion cheeks." This was also a time when male houses of prostitution amrad khaneh, "houses of the beardless," were legally recognized and paid taxes. The notoriety of the Persians for boyish pleasures was such that in the late eighteenth century Richard Francis Burton referred to Central Asian pederasty as "the Persian vice."
The Ottoman Empire
Richard Francis Burton
In the Ottoman empire, same-sex relations between men and youths were often prostitution. The sex workers involved - who were never Muslims but were youths bought or levied or captured from neighboring nations, such as Armenia, Greece, and the Balkan states - were either entertainers such as the köçeks or masseurs in the hammams known as tellak. The köçek tradition was a central element of Ottoman culture, flourishing from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It was brought to an end by its very success in that the competition for the handsome boy dancers became a threat to public order, and the practice was banned in 1856 under the reign of Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid I.
The tellaks were also highly prized. Catalogs were compiled listing their individual qualities, and competition for their favors at times resulted in violence. One episode, in the mid-eighteenth century, led to urban warfare between opposing bands of Janissaries and was brought to an end only by the intervention of the Sultan, who had the boy hung.
The sexual doings of the Turks came under frequent criticism by their Christian neighbors. The [http://www.stefancelmare.ro/izvoare-rom.htm Chronicles of the Moldavian Land] mention that the Ottomans upon the sack of Crimea in 1475, sailed away with a galleon filled with one hundred and fifty young boys destined for "the filthy sodomy of the whoring Turk."
John Cam Hobhouse an early traveller to Istanbul with his friend Lord Byron described the köçek dances as "beastly" and the anonymous poem Don Leon (written in the voice of Byron and ascribed to him by some), a poem otherwise protective and admiring of same-sex love, referred to Turkish boy prostitution as a "monstrous scene."
Studies of Ottoman criminal law, which is based on the Sharia, reveal that persistent sodomy with non-consenting boys was a serious offense and those convicted faced capital punishment.
See also Homosexuality and Islam, Kocek and Hammam
Central America
Hammam
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his The Conquest of New Spain, reported that the Mexica
peoples regularly practiced pederastic relationships, and male adolescent sacred
prostitutes would congregate in temples. The conquistadores, like almost all Europeans of the 16th century, were horrified by the widespread acceptance of sex between men and youths in Aztec society, and used it as one justification for the extirpation of native society, religion and culture, and the taking of the lands and wealth; of all customs of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples, only human sacrifice produced a greater disapproval amongst the Spaniards in Mexico. The custom died out with the collapse of the Aztec civilization.
Though early Mayans are thought to have been strongly antagonistic to same-sex relationships, later Mayan states employed pederastic practices. Their introduction was ascribed to the god Chin. One aspect was that of the father procuring a younger lover for his son. Juan de Torquemada mentions that if the (younger) boy was seduced by a stranger, the penalty was equivalent to that for adultery. Bernal Diaz reported statues of male pairs making love in the temples at Cape Catoche, Yucatan.
Western models
Yucatan, 1602 - 1603; Oil on canvas; Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Painted for a patron who veiled the work, revealing it only to selected viewers. Love, embodied by a wanton boy, triumphs over all human endeavors: war, science, music, government.]]
Pederasty has contributed greatly to the social, artistic and literary achievements of the West. Homosexuals today, while distancing themselves from the practice of modern-day pederasty, often discuss the history of pederasty interchangeably with the history of homosexuality. If they did not do so, they would have to disavow any link between homosexuality and many, if not most, of the historical figures who practiced, and the artistic works which were inspired by, same-sex love. To the contrary, however, modern-day androphilic gays have consistently cited as their forebears Western artists with pederastic leanings.
The Renaissance, with its rediscovery of the ancient world, was a fertile time for such relations. Among the luminaries of the time who had romantic liaisons with youths were Théophile de Viau, Benvenuto Cellini, Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. At the same time, the Catholic Church, working through the Inquisition courts as well as through the civil judiciary, used every means at its disposal to fight what it considered to be the "corruption of sodomy." Men were fined or jailed; boys were flogged. The harshest punishments, such as burning at the stake, were usually reserved for crimes committed against the very young, or by violence.
Renaissance Florence in particular was famous for its high incidence of pederasty. So widespread was pederasty that in 1432 the city established "Gli Ufficiali di Notte" (The Officers of the Night) to root out the practice of sodomy. From that year until 1502, the number of men charged with sodomy numbered greater than 17,000, of which 3,000 were convicted. The prevalence of pederasty in Renaissance Florence is perhaps best conveyed by the fact that the Germans adopted the word florenzen to describe the act of having relations with a youth.
In England, Shakespeare's sonnets and Marlowe's poetry, among others, defied religious proscriptions, flaunting love for beautiful boys and celebrating their androgynous beauty. At least in Shakespeare's case the object of that passion is thought to have been one of the boy actors, youths who played all the female parts on stage (and sometimes off).
In contrast, pederastic love was at times featured by artists who in all likelyhood were not pederasts themselves, such as Johann Sebastian Bach in the air of Phoebus-Apollo dedicated to young Hyacinth, in his secular cantata BWV 201, Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde (Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan) [The contest between Phoebus and Pan]. Many artistic representations of pederasty reflected an unfavorable light upon it. In that category are works by Albrecht Dürer (The Death of Orpheus) and by Rembrandt, whose Rape of Ganymede satirizes the love of boys, turning the youth into a squalling toddler and the lover into a bird of prey.
In the 19th century, the gradual re-discovery of the sites of antiquity in Italy and Greece fueled a new interest, if not almost a hysteria, in these old civilizations, particularly in Britain and Germany.
Germany
Accordingly, pederastic relationships again became en vogue in the life and work of artists, for example in poetry (Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Paul Verlaine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), literature (Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne), paintings (Henry Scott Tuke), and photography (Wilhelm von Gloeden). The most conspicuous group of pederastic writers in 19th-century England were the Uranian poets.
The end of the 19th century, marked by the trial against Oscar Wilde, was marked by conflict over the limited social acceptance of pederasty. This is exemplified by the Young Wandervogel movement, an organization similar to the Boy Scouts, but emphasizing a more romantic view of nature. Young Wandervogel was itself spawned by the Wandervogel movement, which took flight in 1896, the same year that the journal Der Eigene went to press. It was published by a twenty two year old German, Adolf Brand (1874-1945), and it advocated classical pederasty as a cure for the moral flabbiness of German youth. Influenced by the ideas of Gustav Wyneken, the Wandervogel movement was quite open about its gay / pederastic tendencies, although this kind of affection was supposed to be expressed in a mostly nonsexual way. The founding of Young Wandervogel happened largely as a reaction to the public scandal about these erotic tendencies, which were said to alienate young men from women.
Modern constructs
:Main article: Pederasty in the modern world
The literary pederastic tradition was continued by writers such as André Gide, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Mann, Henry de Montherlant, Eric Satie, Benjamin Britten, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fernando Vallejo, and Allen Ginsberg
After the middle of the century, the pederastic element of the gay liberation movement was repudiated by the androphile segment of the community, which saw that split as a quick path to legitimacy. This has been criticized by Camille Paglia and others as counterproductive and conducive to a ghettoization of homosexuality.
Presently, no society is openly making use of liminal same-sex love – relations with young people of legal age – to further social goals, despite their legal status in countries granting erotic emancipation to adolescents in their mid-teens. Currently, in the news media the term tends to be used incorrectly as a synonym for pedophilia, even though the latter designates the sexual obsession of adults with prepubescent boys or girls.
Historical pederastic couples
pedophilia
Over the course of history there have been a number of recorded erotic mentoring relationships between older men and adolescent boys. All of these followed at least some aspects of classical pederasty. In some of these cases both members eventually became well known historical figures, in others only one of the two achieved that distinction. See Historical pederastic couples
Proverbs and sayings
- Ancient Greece
- You can carry a bull, if you carried the calf. Petronius, The Satyricon, III.67 Said to excuse men's relations with "boys" who were no longer adolescents.
- China
- A beautiful lad can ruin an older head, a beautiful woman can tangle a tongue. Xun Xi, in Intrigues of the Warring States
- Egypt
- For a boy, they will kill. For a woman, never. Siwan proverb.
- Morocco
- A boy will memorize the Qur'an well only if he has the imam for lover. Richard Francis Burton A saying from North Africa. (Lover in this case, does not mean homosexual love)
- Italy
- If you crave joys, tumble some boys. Florentine proverb, ca. 1480. After Sabadino degli Arienti in Le Porretane.
- Modern
- How do you separate the men from the boys? With a crowbar. Anonymous Often used as a jocular slur through attribution to a particular group or locality (the Navy, the Turkish Army, Arkansas, etc.).
See also
- Age disparity in sexual relationships
- Childlove movement
- Friendship
- Historical pederastic couples
- Homosexuality
- Mentoring
- Mythology of same-sex love
- Platonic love
- Sex in advertising
- Shudo
- Sodomy
Filmography
- Les amitiés particulières [The Special Friendships], dir. Jean Delannoy (1964)
- Based on the prize-winning novel by Roger Peyrefitte.
- Satyricon, dir. Federico Fellini (1969)
- Based upon Petronius' Satyricon.
- Les Amis [The Friends], dir. Gérard Blain (1970)
- Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys, dir. Adi Sideman (1994)
- Independent documentary consisting of interviews with members of NAMBLA.
- Morte a Venezia [Death in Venice], dir. Luchino Visconti (1971)
- Based on the novel by Thomas Mann.
- Il Fiore Delle Mille e Una Notte [The Flower of the Thousand and One Nights dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini (1974)
- More generally known as The Arabian Nights, last part of his Trilogy of Life.
- Un enfant dans la foule [A Child in the Crowd], dir. Gérard Blain (1976)
- Ernesto, dir. Salvatore Samperi (1979)
- Voor een verloren soldaat [For a Lost Soldier], dir. Roeland Kerbosch (1993)
- Based upon autobiographical novel by Dutch dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig.
- Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes [Water Drops On Burning Rocks], dir. François Ozon (2000)
- Pianese Nunzio, 14 anni a maggio [Pianese Nunzio, 14 in May], dir. Antonio Capuano (1996)
- I Piso Porta [The Back Door], dir. Yorgos Tsemberopoulos (2000)
- La ville dont le prince est un enfant [The Land Where the King is a Child], television film, dir. Christophe Malavoy (1997)
- La virgen de los sicarios [The Virgin of the Assassins], dir. Barbet Schroeder (2000)
- Based on the autobiographical novel by Colombian linguist Fernando Vallejo.
- L.I.E. (Long Island Expressway), dir. Michael Cuesta (2001)
References
;General
- [http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/INDEXATLAS.HTM Growing Up Sexually: A World Atlas]
- [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13611 Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Vol. 2: Sexual Inversion, by Havelock Ellis]
- [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2086628&dopt=Abstract Pederasty among primitives: institutionalized initiation and cultic prostitution, by G. Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg]
;Ancient Greece
- Greek Homosexuality, by Kenneth J. Dover; New York; Vintage Books, 1978. ISBN 0394742249
- [http://williamapercy.com/pub-Peder.htm Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece] by William A. Percy; University of Illinois Press, 1996. ISBN 0252022092
- Die Griechische Knabenliebe [Greek Pederasty], by Herald Patzer; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982. In: Sitzungsberichte der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Vol. 19 No. 1.
- Homosexuality in Greek Myth, by Bernard Sergent; Beacon Press, 1986. ISBN 0807057002
- Homosexualité et initiation chez les peuples indo-européens, by Bernard Sergent, Payot & Rivages, 1996, ISBN 2228890529
- Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths, by Andrew Calimach; Haiduk Press, 2001. ISBN 0971468605
- Lovers' Legends Unbound, by Andrew Calimach et al.; Haiduk Press, 2004. ISBN 0971468613
- Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, by Thomas K. Hubbard; U. of California Press, 2003. [http://www.utexas.edu/courses/cc348hubbard/] ISBN 0520234308
;Europe
- An Enigmatic Indo-European Rite: Pederasty. by J. Bremmer, in Arethusa 13: 279-98, 1980
- Creating the Sensual Child: Paterian Aesthetics, Pederasty, and Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales by Naomi Wood in Marvels & Tales - Volume 16, Number 2, 2002, pp. 156-170
- Questioning Power Hierarchies: Michael Davidson and Literary Pederasty in Italy by Sergio Rigoletto [http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spt/1-4-3-1.html]
;Japan
- The Love of the Samurai. A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, by T. Watanabe & J. Iwata; London: GMP Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0854491155
- Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan, by Gary Leupp; Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995. ISBN 0520209001
- Cartographies of desire: male-sexuality in Japanese discourse, 1600-1950, by Gregory Pflugfelder, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520209095
- Japanese pederasty and homosexuality, by K.A. Adams, in the Journal of Psychohistory, 2002 Summer;30(1):54-66
;The New World
- The Politicization of Pederasty Among the Colonial Yucatecan Maya, by John C. Fout in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 8, 1997
;Muslim Lands
- Abu 'Abdur-Rahman as-Sulami. Early Sufi Women, Dhikr an-niswa al-muta'abbidat as-sufiyyat. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999, pp. 78-79
- Philip F. Kennedy. The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. ISBN 0198263929
- Khaled El-Rouayheb. The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800. Middle Eastern Literatures; January 2005, vol.8, no.1.
- Lacey, E.A. (Trans.) The Delight of Hearts: Or, What You Will Not Find in Any Book. Gay Sunshine Press, 1988.
- Emilio Garcia Gomez. (Ed.) In Praise of Boys: Moorish Poems from Al-Andalus Translated from the Spanish by Erskine Lane. Gay Sunshine Press, 1975.
- Ritter, Hellmut. Das Meer der Seele, 1955 (English translation The Ocean of the Soul, 2003). (Chapters 24, 25 ,26).
- Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, et al. Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1997. ISBN 0814774687
- Peter Lambourn Wilson. Contemplation of the Unbearded - The Rubaiyyat of Awhadoddin Kermani. Paidika, Vol.3, No.4 (1995).
- Yoginder Sikand. A Martyr for Love - Hazrat Sayed Sarmad, a Sufi gay mystic. Perversions, Vol.1, No.4. Spring 1995.
- Maarten Schild. The Irresistible Beauty of Boys - Middle Eastern attitudes about boy-love. Paidika, Vol.1, No.3.
- Norman Roth. "The Care and Feeding of Gazelles" - medieval Hebrew and Arabic Love Poetry. Poetics of Love in the Middle Ages, 1989.
- Roth, Norman. Fawn of My Delights - boy-love in Hebrew and Arabic Verse. Sex in the Middle Ages. 1991.
- Norman Roth. Boy-love in Medieval Arabic Verse. Paidika, Vol.3, No.3, 1994.
- Casey R. Williamson. Where did that boy go? - the missing boy-beloved in post-colonial Persian literature.
- J. Wright & Everett Rowson. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature. 1998.
- 'Homosexuality' & other articles in the [http://www.iranica.com/ Encyclopædia Iranica]
See also: Abu Nuwas, Hafez.
Footnotes
# Mukhtar, M. H. Tarbiyat-e-Aulad aur Islam [The Upbringing of Children in Islam]. dar-ut-Tasneef, Jamiat ul-Uloom Il-Islamiyyah allama Banuri Town Karachi. English translation by Rafiq Abdur Rahman. Transl. esp. Chapter 11: Responsibility for Sexual Education.
External links
- [http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/social19.htm Intergenerational and Egalitarian Models]
- [http://www.androphile.org/preview/Culture/Greece/greece.htm The Androphile Project – The World History of Male Love: Male Love in Greece]
- [http://www.androphile.org/preview/Library/History/hephaistosforge-zeus_gaynemede/ephorus_cretans.html Ephorus on Cretan pederasty]
- [http://www.williamapercy.com/pub-Peder.htm Pederasty and Pedagogy In Archaic Greece]
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TudásTudás A tudás a kontextustól függően egy sok értelemben használt szó, így nehéz definiálni. Egy átfogó meghatározás helyett tehát inkább ezeket a kontextusokat és az ottani jelentést írjuk le.
Hétköznapi tudás
A hétköznapi értelemben a "tudás" szónak legalább két értelmét is megkülönböztetjük. Az egyik az a teoretikus tudás, amelyet a filozófiai is vizsgál, és lejjebb részletezni fogunk. A másik az képességet jelent. A teoretikus tudás tanulás során, vagy a tapasztalatokból összefüggések tudatos felismerésével szerzett információ. A képesség pedig a tapasztalatok során tudattalanul kialakult összefüggés. A képességeket az emberek, akárcsak az állatok, visoznylag lassan, hosszú gyakorlat (tanulás) során szerzik. Az emberek azonban abban különbözik a legtöbb állattól, hogy képes teoretikus tudást is elsajátítani, méghozzá akár egyszeri példák alapján, következtetéssel, vagy tanulás során nyelvi kommunikációban.
Tudás a filozófiában
A filozófia azon ága, amelyik a tudással foglalkozik, a megismeréstan, vagy episztemológia, csak a teoretikus tudással, és annak is csak a kikristályosodott, filozófiailag releváns részével foglalkozik.
A nyugati filozófia történetében Platontól kezdve a legtöbb filozófusnak a tudás egy igazolt igaz vélekedés volt. Platon Theaithetos című dialógusa fogalmazza ezt meg. Kezdetben sokan tudásnak csak a bizonyossággal igaz vélekedéseket tartották, míg minden kevésbé bizonyosat csak valószínű vélekedésbek.
Későbbi filozófiai kritikák során be kellett látni, hogy bizonyossággal legfeljebb a tudásunk egy szűk része rendelkezhet (a legszkeptikusoks zerint semmi sem bizonyos), és ekkor csak valamilyen gyengébb igazoltságot, és nem bizonyosságot követeltek meg a tudástól.
Edmund Gettier tanulmánya mutatott azonban rá, hogy az igazság, és igazoltság bár valószínűleg szükséges, de nem elegendő feltételei a tudásnak, hanem kell még egy feltétel. Ugyanis nem mondhatjuk, hogy valaki tudással rendelkezik valamiről, ha eltalál valamit igaz módon, a vélekedésére igazolása is van, ugyanakkor az igazolás tartalma, és az állítás igazsága nem kapcsolódik szervesen, azaz az illető rossz gondolatmenettel talált el valamit helyesen.
Gettier cikke óta sokan próbáltak megoldást adni a problémára, amely megoldások az igazolás és az állítás igazsága közötti "szerves kapcsolatot" próbálják megragadni. Ez a vita azóta sem záródott le.
Lásd még
Tudományfilozófia, Episztemológia, Logika, Szkepticizmus
Külső hivatkozások
- Edmund Gettier: Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? in Analysis, v. 23. Available at http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html
- "Mikor igazolt egy hit? : ismeretelméleti szöveggyűjtemény", Budapest, Osiris ,2002.
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Kategória: Filozófia
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