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· Denunciation of Woman in Early Poets ·
· Kindlier Attitude of Homer ·
· Penelope · Nausicaä · Andromache · Helen ·
· Contemptuous Attitude of the Dramatists ·
· Their Fine Types ·
· Iphigenia · Alcestis · Antigone ·
· Consideration for Women in the Heroic Age ·
[Illustration: Decorative image]
I
“The badness of man is better than the goodness of woman,” says a
Jewish proverb. And worse still, “A man of straw is better than a
woman of gold.” As men made the proverbs, these may be commended for
modesty as well as chivalry. The climax is reached in this amiable
sentiment: “A dead wife is the best goods in a man’s house.” Under such
teaching it is not at all surprising that the Jews began their morning
invocations, two thousand years ago, with these significant words:
“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast not
made me a heathen, who hast not made me a slave, who hast not made me a
woman.”
These are very good samples of the manner in which women were talked
of in ancient days. In Egypt, however, they fared rather better. We
are even told that men pledged obedience to their wives, in which case
they doubtless spoke of them more respectfully. At all events, they had
great political influence, were honored as priestess or prophetess,
and had the privilege of owning themselves and their belongings. But a
state of affairs in which
Men indoors sit weaving at the loom,
And wives outdoors must earn their daily bread,
has its unpleasant side. How it was regarded by women does not appear,
but if they found a paradise they were speedily driven out of it.
Evidently men did not find the exchange of occupations agreeable. Two
or three centuries before our era, a Greek ruler came to the throne,
who had other views, and every woman awoke one morning to the fact
that her day was ended, her power was gone, and that she owned nothing
at all. Everything that she had, from her house and her land to her
feathers and her jewels, was practically confiscated, so that she could
no longer dispose of it. These women had rights, and lost them. Why
they were taken away we do not know. Possibly too much was claimed. But
all this goes to prove that “chivalrous man” cannot be trusted so long
as he holds not simply the balance of power, but the whole of it.
Apart from this little episode, the early world never drifted far from
the traditions of the Garden of Eden, where Adam naturally reserved
the supremacy for himself, and sent obedient Eve about her housewifely
duties among the roses and myrtles. If these were soon turned into
thorns and thistles, it was only her proper punishment for bringing
into the world its burden of human ills.
The changes were rung on this theme in all races and languages.
The esthetic Greeks surpassed the Jews in their denunciations, and
exhausted their wit in cynical phrases that lacked even the dignity of
criticism. No writers have abused women more persistently. It is an
evidence of great moral vitality that, in the face of such undisguised
contempt, they were able to maintain any prestige at all. If we may
credit the poets who gave the realistic side of things, there was
neither honor nor joy in the life of the average woman who dwelt in the
shadow of Helicon. It was bare and cheerless, without even the sympathy
that tempers the hardest fate. This pastoral existence, which seems
so serene, had its serpent, and that serpent was a woman. A wife was
a necessary evil. If a man did not marry, he was doomed to a desolate
age; if he did, his happiness was sure to be ruined. Out of ten types
of women described by the elder Simonides, only one was fit for a wife,
and this was because she had the nature of a bee and was likely to add
to her husband’s fortune. As the proportion was so small, the risk may
be imagined. Her side of the question was never taken into account
at all. The comfort of so insignificant a being was really not worth
considering. “A man has but two pleasant days with his wife,” says the
satirist; “one when he marries her, the other when he buries her.”
Hesiod mentions, among the troubles of having a wife, that she insists
upon sitting at table with her husband. Later, when the Greeks found
their pleasure in fields of the intellect which were closed to women,
even this poor privilege was usually denied her, and always when other
men were present. Hesiod was evidently a disappointed man, and took
dark views of things, women in particular, but he only followed the
fashion of his time in making them responsible for the troubles and
sorrows of men. It was the old, old story: “The woman gave me, and I
did eat.” She was the Pandora who had let loose upon the world all the
ills, and kept in her box the hope that might have made them tolerable.
If she found her position an unpleasant one, she had the consolation
of being told that she was one of the evils sent into the world by the
gods, to punish men for the sin of Prometheus. The other was disease.
This is a sorry picture, but it reflects the usual Greek attitude
toward women, and cannot be ignored, much as we should like to honor
the sense of justice, and the heart as well as the intellect of men of
so brilliant a race.