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

MARRIAGE AND THE LIFE OF WOMEN

considerable sum of money from the young man who was surprised zm flagrante delicto. In the same way Stephanus played the pimp for his daughter: from a certain Epzenetus, whom he found in bed with her, he extracted 30 minae (about {[120). We frequently hear of similar cases in ancient literature, and it may often have first taken place in cases of which written authorities tell us nothing. That those who were disturbed in their amorous enjoyment were glad if they could get out of it by so large a payment is explained by the heavy fines which were fixed for the seduction of a married woman or a girl of irreproachable character. We shall speak later of these penalties.

In a place so sensitive as Athens, and, indeed, in the rest of Greece, marriage was regarded, at least if we may believe Plato (Laws, vi, 773), as the fulfilment of a duty to the gods; the citizen was meant to leave behind in his children servants and worshippers of the gods. It was also held to be a moral duty to ensure the continued existence of the state by the procreation of descendants. We have no certainly attested information concerning laws which made marriage a duty, except in Sparta; indeed, Solon is said to have refused to mtroduce such laws with words that are not improbable in view of his own position with regard to sexual relations, that woman is like a dead weight on a man’s life (Stobzus, Sermones, 68, 33). If Plato elevates marriage to a legal demand (Laws, iv, 721; Vi, 774), and would like to have a single life punished by fines and loss of civil rights, he takes, as he often does in the Laws, quite the same point of view as the Spartans, among whom, according to Ariston (Stobeus, Sermones, 67, 16), not only single men, but also those who married late were punished, those who concluded a bad marriage, that is one of unequal birth or that proved unfruitful, being punished most severely. The law by which the great law-giver Lycurgus punished unmarried

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