Three Categories.

Women's choruses can be divided into three categories: girls before the age of puberty; unmarried girls, called variously parthenoi or korai or nymphai; and married women. The most evidence survives on the parthenoi, a Greek word that many scholars have translated as "virgins," yet literary evidence points to this word meaning "women who have not yet given birth." The size of the parthenoi chorus might vary, but most were composed of ten members. A parthenoi chorus was often portrayed on Greek vases; one vase, found in the marketplace of ancient Athens and dating to the beginning of the seventh century B.C.E., shows ten young women, all dressed in white, holding hands, their heads turned upwards as if they were singing and dancing. Another vase, a mixing-bowl for wine—the Greeks drank their wine mixed with water—which was...