Pederasty

A History of Education in Antiquity's age, interestingly, doesn't show quite so much as you might expect in the discussion of pederasty and homosexuality in ancient Greece. After Marrou gets through the necessary clarifications, he goes to lengths to show that pederasty was  an educational system in itself.

Such an assertion might sound like an excuse for the practice, but Marrou's point centers on the connection between the adult and the adolescent. In Marrou's explanattion, their mutual affection and ardent striding to earn and maintain this affection works as a channel for the education of both. Marrou also points out that this male to male connection is a feature of classical Greek cultural and social ideals.

Most shocking, though, is the notion that the ancient Greek family simply could not be a center of education. The mother essentially left off raising the child (the son, I assume, Marrou doesn't specify) once he reached seven, and the father was too busy being a citizen to teach his son. So it fell to another older man to complete a son's education.

Add in the ancient Greeks thinking that a teacher who sold his knowledge to anyone was no teacher at all, and pederasty flourished. Even, thanks to Sappho and others like her, among girls and women.