Marriages in Greece were often arranged for girls while they were mere
children, of course without any reference to their choice, since they
were looked upon as the _property_ of the father, who could dispose of
them at his pleasure. Besides these early betrothals there was an
obstacle to free choice in the Athenian law which forbade a citizen
under very severe penalties to marry a foreigner. And again, “In the
case of a father dying intestate, and without male children, his heiress
had no choice in marriage; she was compelled by law to marry her nearest
kinsman, not in the ascending line.... Where there were several
co-heiresses, they were respectively married to their kinsmen, the
nearest having the first choice”—a law resembling one in the Jewish
code, and exemplified by Ruth, as pointed out in Smith’s _Dictionary_.
How Sexual Selection was rendered impracticable in Greece is further
shown in the following citations from Becker: “The choice of the bride
seldom depended on previous, or at least on intimate acquaintance. More
attention was generally paid to the position of a damsel’s family, and
the amount of her dowry, than to her _personal qualities_.” "It was
usual for a father to choose for his son a wife, and one perhaps whom
the bridegroom had never seen." “Widows frequently married again; this
was often in compliance with the testamentary dispositions of their
husbands, as little regard being paid to their wishes as in the case of
girls.”
Thus we see that three causes combined to prevent the growth of Romantic
Love in Greece—the degraded position of women, the absence of direct
Courtship, and the impossibility of exercising Individual Preference.