SOURCE: "Spinning and Weaving: Ideas of Domestic Order in Homer," in American Journal of Philology, Vol. 114, No. 4, Summer, 1993, pp. 493-501.

In the following essay, Pantelia determines the function of spinning and weaving for different female characters in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Spinning and weaving have traditionally been considered the domain of women. All evidence suggests that in antiquity the working of wool and the production of garments were primary occupations of women, who, regardless of their social status—be they slaves or queens—contributed through their handiwork to the self-sufficiency of their own households. In the Homeric poems all women, including queens and goddesses, are either specifically described or said to be involved in the spinning of wool or the creation of cloth on their looms. Their work symbolizes the normal order of life, in which women take care of their households while men defend the city...