Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

MARRIAGE AND THE LIFE OF WOMEN

times only refers to the lives of great men, the kings and nobles, and that we know little or nothing of the position of women of the lower classes. But if we consider that the Homeric epos gives us complete information on the life of the lesser peoplepeasants, cattle-breeders, huntsmen, shepherds, fishermen—the fact that nothing is said about the women can certainly be regarded as a proof that the life of the woman was restricted to house and home, and that as early as that time the saying of Pericles (Thucydides, ii, 45), afterwards so famous, can be applied to the women—that “‘ those women are the best, of whom one speaks least in the society of men, either well or ill.”

What the Boeotian poet Hesiod, in his poetical shepherds’ calendar entitled Works and Days (5109 f., 7o1 ff.), tells us of the life of the Greek women only confirms this view. The poet finds nice words for the girl still unmarried, ‘“‘ who still remains at home by her dear mother’s side, as yet inexperienced in the works of the gold-adorned Aphrodite.” While outside the furious winter storm rages, throws down the high-topped oaks and pines, and benumbs men and cattle with cold, she takes a warm bath in her room comfortably heated throughout, increases the suppleness of her maiden limbs by rubbing them with oil of balsam, and then snugly slips between the sheets. Certainly the poet, who was himself a peasant, cannot rise above everyday commonplaces, and his precepts—that the simple man of the neighbourhood may marry somewhere about the age of thirty, while his choice should be about nineteen and, of course, still a virgin —clearly show that marriage at that tume had not much to do with poetry. But this narrow-minded, commonplace idea of the woman in such early times as those, and even among these simple men of the lower classes, cannot have been a matter of course, otherwise Hesiod would not so impressively admonish them, that the “ clever man tests everything and