Source A: Plutarch, Pericles 24
'Pericles' own wife was a close relative of his, and had been married before to Hipponicus, by whom she had Callias the Rich; with Pericles she had Xanthippus and Paralus. Later, since they did not get on together, he handed her over to another husband with her consent, and took Aspasia himself and loved her deeply. They say that every day, when he went out and when he came back from the agora, he greeted her with a kiss. ... It seems that he also had an illegitimate son by her.'
To what extent was Aspasia treated more like a wife than a hetaira? Use Source A as a starting point and your own knowledge.
Model answer
In private, Pericles seems to have treated Aspasia very much as a wife. Source A says that after an unhappy marriage he handed his wife to another husband and 'took Aspasia himself and loved her deeply', greeting her with a kiss every time he left and returned home. They lived together for years and had a son, Pericles the Younger, whom Pericles clearly wanted as his heir, since he later asked the Athenians to make the boy a citizen after his legitimate sons Xanthippus and Paralus died in the plague.
However, in law and in public opinion Aspasia was not a wife. She came from Miletus, and Pericles' own citizenship law of 451/450 BC meant that a metic could not marry a citizen or bear citizen children; her son was a nothos until a special exception was made. Comic poets made the point cruelly: Cratinus called her a 'dog-eyed concubine' and others the 'new Omphale', a foreign woman who enslaved a great man. Plutarch reports that she was said to imitate the Ionian courtesan Thargelia and to keep young hetairai, and the comic poet Hermippus prosecuted her for impiety. Her life was also unlike a wife's because it was so public: Socrates and his friends visited her to hear her talk, whereas a respectable wife was expected to be unseen.
We should be cautious, though, because much of this comes from comedy written to mock Pericles, and Plutarch was writing about five hundred years later; even he reports many things only as 'they say'.
Overall, Aspasia was treated as a wife by Pericles himself, but Athenian law and society never let her be one. She fitted neither category neatly: a long-term partner with a wife's affection but a hetaira's public reputation.
Explanation
The best answers weigh Pericles' private treatment of Aspasia against her legal status and public reputation, and show why the citizenship law mattered. Evaluating the sources (comedy written to attack Pericles, Plutarch's distance in time) adds critical analysis. A narrative of Aspasia's life without a judgement on 'wife or hetaira' cannot reach the top levels.
