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Alternatively, women were primarily trained to be mothers, who produced strong and healthy male children for the good of the state.<ref>Pomeroy, p. 19</ref> The education and freedom that Spartan girls had was limited and designed to ensure that they provided male children who could be trained as warriors. Women did have a defined status in society. Such was motherhood's status that those who died in childbirth were honored like those who fell in battle defending the city-state.<ref>Pomeroy, p 178</ref>

Because the individual was expected to put the common good before their own interests, the family unit was not strong. Marriage was not about love or even the transfer of property, as was the case in the rest of the Hellenic words. As in the rest of Greece, young women in Lacedaemon could not select their bridegroom. However, unlike other city-states, families did not select young women’s husbands, but an official performed this role. This was to ensure that Spartan couples could produce strong and healthy male children for the city-state's good. <ref>Cartledge, p 101</ref>