It is not unlikely that Aspasia had much to do with modifying the low
views held regarding her sex, and with promoting the discussions of
the philosophers who came after her. Socrates had her example before
him when he said that the talent of women was not at all inferior
to that of men, though they lacked bodily vigor and strength. Plato
accorded them the same talents as men, though less in degree; indeed,
he went so far as to advise a common training, as in Sparta, on the
ground that gifts are diffused equally between the sexes. Aristotle is
less generous to women. He accords them weaker reasoning powers, and
insists upon their silent and passive obedience; but he preaches to
men justice, appreciation, and the sanctity of marriage. On the whole,
from our point of view, he paints a more agreeable society than Plato,
in spite of the greater equality taught by the latter. The satirists
were not slow to take up the matter, and Aristophanes drew a doleful
picture of women donning male attire and going to the agora to reform
the State, while their husbands were left to look after things at home.
They start out with the idea of making everybody happy. There are to be
no rich, no poor, no thefts, no slanders, no miseries. Praxagora pleads
her cause with all the force and energy of the modern woman who seeks
political rights, but she is less poised and goes further. The State is
to be intrusted to women. They are successful managers at home and have
shown their superior gifts of administration. In any case, they could
not do worse than men have done. They end, however, by voting unlimited
communism and outdoing the demagogues. This “woman’s congress” was not
an unqualified success; indeed, it was a disgraceful failure, as it was
intended to be: but it cast into like ridicule the philosophers and
the “strong-minded” women, among whom Aspasia was doubtless included,
as she had convictions, though the conversations in her salon probably
marked the limit of their public expression. Who the others were we do
not know, but it is clear that there was an undercurrent of “divine
discontent” among the women of two thousand years ago. History repeats
itself, and the “woman question” is not a new one, though we have made
immense strides in the rational consideration of it.
It is sufficiently clear that the harmonious development of the
Hellenic women was in proportion to their liberty of action, and the
most fault was found with them where they had the least freedom. If
the spirited women of Sparta had been born in conservative Athens
the world might never have known that they were capable of so much
strength and heroism. The sparks hidden in their cramped souls would
have gone out for lack of air. If the secluded Athenian woman had been
born in Sparta, who can say that she might not have been as clever as
Gorgo, as brave as Cratesiclea, and as independent as Lampito? It is
possible that the genius of Sappho would have been smothered in the
social atmosphere of either place. There is ample evidence that the
intellects of Greek women expanded fast enough when the conventional
pressure was even partly removed. Nor is it true that they retrograded
in morals as they advanced in intelligence. Never did the Attic poets
point their shafts of satire so sharply as against the follies of the
ignorant women who were limited mainly to their apartments, far from
the possible corruption of knowledge or the visible temptation to sin.
The tone of morality was purer even among the free Spartan women, who
had more education but less surveillance.
There is nothing more vitally significant in the lives of Athenian
wives than the extent to which they saw themselves set aside and
neglected for foreigners of more brilliant accomplishments, because
they could not or would not break the bonds of fashionable tradition,
which decreed for them silence and seclusion. In primitive conditions
where no one is educated, the virtues may suffice for companionship;
but at a certain stage of civilization, when men read and think, the
woman who does not is sure to be practically excluded from his society,
though she may still be his housekeeper or the toy of an idle hour.
Athens in the height of her glory presented the strange anomaly of a
respectable illiterate class from which the mothers of future citizens
must be taken, and an educated class without civil rights who could
not marry Athenians. If the latter had any domestic ties at all, they
were forced into morganatic relations. This did not of necessity imply
laxity of character; indeed, it was not always condemned by Athenian
moralists. But no class could long maintain any high standard of virtue
under such conditions. They opened the way for endless license. The gay
and dissolute women from the East flocked to the Hellenic cities, and
in the reckless corruption that followed, wise men trace a potent cause
of Athenian decline.