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

CHARTERS

MARRIAGE AND THE LIFE OF WOMEN

1. THE GREEK WOMAN

It is hardly necessary nowadays to emphasize the fact that the assertion, one often heard, that the position of the Greek married woman was an unworthy one, is fundamentally wrong. ‘This erroneous opinion was bound to arise, since it originated in an incorrect assumption—a perverted estimate of women. However inferior as politicians the Greeks were throughout their short history, they were always admirable artists of life. Hence they assigned to woman as a whole the limits which nature had prescribed for them. The modern idea that there are two types of women, the mother and the courtesan, was recognized by the Greeks in the earliest times of their civilization, and they acted in accordance with it. Of the latter type, we will speak later, but no greater honour could be paid to a woman than the Greeks assigned to the mother type. When the Greek woman had become a mother she had attained the object of her life. Then two tasks were allotted to her, which she considered the highest imaginable—the management of domestic affairs and the bringing up of her children, of the girls until they were married, of the boys until the awakening of the spiritual individuality of the soul. Thus marriage became for the Greeks a means to an end, the means of acquiring a legitimate generation to come after them, and an organized and trustworthy management of household affairs. The kingdom of the wife involved the complete control of domestic affairs, in which she was absolute mistress. If we please we can call such a marriage dull; indeed, we must do so, if we think of the

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