Warrior

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For other uses, see Warrior (disambiguation).
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Drawing of a Thracian peltast of 400 BC
The warrior goddess Athena - Musée du Louvre

According to the Random House Dictionary, the term warrior has two meanings. The first literal use refers to "a person engaged or experienced in warfare." The second figurative use refers to "a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics." 1

Contents

Overview

In tribal societies engaging in endemic warfare, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people (or, more often large parts of the male population) may be considered warriors, for example in the Iron Age Germanic tribes or the Medieval Rajputs.

Professional warriors are people who are paid money for engaging in military campaigns and fall into one of two categories: Soldiers, when fighting on behalf of their own state; or mercenaries, when offering their services commercially and unrelated to their own nationality. The classification of somebody who is involved in acts of violence may be a matter of perspective, and there may be disagreement whether a given person is a hooligan, gangster, terrorist, rebel, freedom fighter, mercenary or a soldier.

Warrior code

Main article: Warrior code

In many societies in which a specialized warrior class exists, specific codes of conduct (ethical codes) are instituted in order to ensure that the warrior class is not dangerous to the rest of society. Warrior codes often have common features and usually value honour in the forms of faith, loyalty and courage. Examples include the medieval knights' code of chivalry, the Kshatriya code of Dharma in India or Japan's samurai class which uses a warrior code known as Bushido (The Way Of The Warrior). See also noblesse oblige.

Warrior cultures

A warrior culture is a culture that heavily emphasizes battle and war and greatly prizes feats of arms. Warrior cultures often incorporate a cult of personality around military leaders, are ruled by an elite warrior class, and have a warfare based economy.

Statue of Pier Gerlofs Donia, self acclaimed "King of all Frisians". Famous rebel and freedom fighter of legendary strength and size.

Examples of societies in history that could be designated as warrior cultures include:

Feudal societies are not always warrior cultures, since although feats of arms are prized, there is not necessarily an emphasis on battle and war. In some feudal societies, the soldiery was provided through conscription of the peasant class.

Military Orders

Many cultures and states, regardless of whether they are war oriented or not, often have particular groups, disciplines, orders, or other organizations that train specifically for combat. An example is the Medieval Knight, who may hail from a kingdom that has rarely been at war, but who still trains for combat. These group's role in combat may be specific or non-specific. Examples of military orders or groups include:


Women as Warriors

Main article: History of women in the military
Further information: List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture

In many societies women have been considered innocent bystanders in war, alongside children. In such cases, fighting women is considered dishonorable. Most warriors have been men; however, there are many notable female warriors.

In Ancient Egypt, the earliest of recorded histories of human culture, Ahhotep I and Hatshepsut are documented as warrior queens. Others in various early cultures are documented as well.

Amanirenas, a warrior queen of Nubia led her forces to attack Roman territory in Africa. After an initial victory when her forces sacked a Roman town, she was defeated and surrendered. 2 3

Since Eurypyle, Deborah, and Vishpala there have been references to women warriors throughout history. Boudica led an enormous army against the Romans in Britain that is well documented, but managed to have her forces utterly destroyed by the Romans, despite outnumbering them 23:1. See the list provided above for many more. Until modern times, however, warrior women mostly have been noted by historians as an exception or a curiosity. One example of a group of fighting women is the legend of the Amazons recorded in myth.

Today, women are recruited to serve in the military in most countries, while only a few countries permit women to fill active combat roles, including Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland. However, in other countries women do end up in combat situations.

Notes

  1. ^ Warrior, Random House Dictionary, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/warrior 
  2. ^ http://www.jstor.org/pss/716999
  3. ^ African Affairs - Sign In Page

References

  • Shannon E. French, Code of the Warrior - Exploring Warrior Values Past and Present (2003).

See also

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 2 December 2008, at 17:19.

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