Mourning in a man’s world: the Epitaphios Logos and the banning of laments in fifth-century Athens

An extraordinary notion, surely, to be punished as a woman for being unmanly! What lies behind this strange law that lumps together women’s festivals and funerals, and censors female lament in classical Athens? Is it unique to Athens? Is there any basis for associating women mourners with wild or disorderly behaviour? Could such behaviour threaten, in any way, the society at large? Before we look at mourning at funerals, it is worth digressing, for a moment, to the question of women’s festivals, particularly the Adonia, in order to see what connection the Athenian state could possibly make between such apparently disparate occasions.3