She never appeared
in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the
orator Isaeus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go
out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An
Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good
reputation.
The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion.
The husband had taken her not for his life-long companion, but to
keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because
Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says
that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law
constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying:
"Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And
so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece,
always held but little place in society.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus.
[67] This legendary king was called Theseus.
[68] Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, under
"Metics."--ED.
[69] Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured to suppress.
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