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Ephiletus

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Ephiletus
Euphiletus, A Husband Speaks on His Own Defense

Thousand years ago many honor-based societies had laws that citizens should follow and obeyed those laws. The laws were about if somebody murdered someone, stole something or disobeyed some other law, they could be punished by going to jail, being whipped or death. Ancient Greece had one of the fundamental honor based societies in the history. In this society hierarchy played an important role and divided people into social classes. For instance women and men were not equal and women had few rights. Moreover, the main task of women was to stay at home and did not have right to participate at public events. Men had dominant role in public and social events.
In addition, Ancient Greece’s hierarchy also divided people in to higher class and lower class. People who were affluent and had power could vote, had rights to access to the laws and participate important ceremonies. People who were in poverty and did not have power were not able to access to these. The Law of Solon was very essential throughout the Greece that underlined “that and adulterer may be put to death by the man who catches him. As and example, Euphiletus was put on trial after killing his wife’s lover. You might ask a question, “Why he was on trial since the law gives him a right to kill adulterer?” There are two following major reasons why Euphiletus was on trial: because he was in poverty and he killed adulterer in front of the whole community.

First of all Euphiletus was trying to defense himself in the court after killing the man who seduced his wife. According to Euphiletus, he and his wife had very good attitude toward each other and especially his wife came on his trust after their child was born. In Greece people used to live in a house that was divided into two parts- men’s quarters downstairs and the women’s quarters upstairs. Men lived downstairs to protect their wives from another men. Euphiletus

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