What culture is the most interesting to you?

Spartan

Because they are the closest to what my own ancestral heritage was not so long ago. Despite being miles away from each other with little or no direct influences on each other, the Spartans of ancient Greece and the Nairs of ancient Kerala were eerily alike in several aspects.

*The Nair Brigade of the King. An elite guerilla segment entrusted to carry out the most carefully executed military missions.*

Both were predominantly militarized communities with most of their able-bodied men trained for battle from very early childhood. The Spartans called their training agoge, while we called ours, kalaripayattu. Both required rigorous training and produced veritable warlords at the end of the training period.

*For a Spartan warrior, losing his* hoplon or the wooden shield was considered to be more humiliating than losing any other weapon.

Women enjoyed social equality unlike any other community/culture in their immediately nearby cultures. Both the Spartan and Nair women inherited property in equal measure as their brothers did and were well educated in philosophy and even dabbled with elementary warfare as they were given physical training as the men were. They used to think that jobs like sewing and cooking were for slaves/servants.

Unlike many other cultures, both Spartan and Nair women were not confined to the shadows of the inner quarters. They mingled freely with men who were thought of as social equals.

*Spartan girls challenging Spartan boys (Edgar Degas, 1860)*

Almost every man in Sparta was engaged in military service and there was seldom any guarantee for their lives. Losing a husband in battle did not mean the end of the world for a Spartan woman. She would marry again and bear as many strong-bodied sons as she could. The Spartan women were encouraged to be strong so they would produce strong sons.

*Spartan women having a wrestling match*

The Nair society was not that different. There was no hoo-haa about losing a husband in battle. Nair men were war chieftains and a Nair woman expecting him to survive every single battle was seen as stupidity. If he died in battle, she would remarry and continue her life as usual. The intent was to have more children to carry on the bloodline. This was at a time when in several other cultures, young widows were either made to live the life of an ascetic after their heads were shaved off and their colorful clothes replaced with white, or they were simply thrown into their husband’s funeral pyre.

*A Spartan woman sends off her husband into battle with a* hoplon or wooden shield with the words “With this, or upon this”, meaning that she either wishes him to come back safe with the shield or that his body be brought back on it. The wish was largely figurative as the Spartans typically buried their dead near the battlefield where they’d fallen.

Spartan fashion was strangely near identical to Nair (or almost all of the Kerala region) fashion. Most of them wore loose-fitting cotton garments in predominantly white and gold. Sometimes, women left their breasts exposed and this was no big deal.

Like Nair women, Spartan women were known to be radical and very outspoken and were not the kind that could be subdued and intimidated by their menfolk.

There is a very famous quote attributed to Queen Gorgo of Sparta that goes thus…

When asked by a woman from Attica why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied “Because we are the only women who are mothers of men“[1]