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WOMAN
In all ages and in all countries
GREEK WOMEN
by
MITCHELL CARROLL, Ph.D.
Professor of Classical Philology in the George
Washington University
_Copyrighted 1907-1908_
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The history of woman is the history of the world. Strait orthodoxy may
remind us that man preceded woman in the scheme of creation and that
therefore history does not begin with woman; but this is a specious
plea. The first historical information that we gain regarding Adam is
concerned with the creation of woman, and there is nothing to show us
that prior to that time Adam was more active in mind or even in body
than a mollusc. It was not until the coming of woman that history began
to exist; and if the first recorded act of the woman was disastrous in
its consequences, at least it possesses the distinction of making
history. So that it may well be said that all that we are we owe to
woman. Whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden is to be
implicitly accepted, there can be no doubt that from the moment of the
first appearance of mankind on the scene woman has been the ruling cause
of all effect.
The record of woman is one of extremes. There is an average woman, but
she has not been found except in theory. The typical woman, as she is
seen in the pages of history, is either very good or very bad. We find
women saints and we find women demons; but we rarely find a mean. Herein
is a cardinal distinction between the sexes. The man of history is
rarely altogether good or evil; he has a distinct middle ground, in
which we are most apt to find him in his truest aspect. There are
exceptions, and many; but this may be taken as a rule. Even in the
instances of the best and noblest men of whom we have record this rule
will hold. Saint Peter was bold and cautious, brave and cowardly, loving
and a traitor; Saint Paul was boastful and meek, tender and severe;
Saint John cognized beyond all others the power of love, and wished to
call down fire from heaven upon a village which refused to hear the
Gospel; and it is most probable that the true Peter and Paul and John
lived between these extremes. Not so with the women of the same story.
They were throughout consistent with themselves; they were utterly pure
and holy, as Mary Magdalene,--to whose character great wrong has been
done in the past by careless commentary,--or utterly vile, as Herodias.
Extremism is a chief feminine characteristic. Extremist though she be,
woman is always consistent in her extremes; hence her power for good and
for evil.
It is a mistaken idea which places the "emancipation" of woman at a late
date in the world's history. From time immemorial, woman has been
actively engaged in guiding the destinies of mankind. It is true that
the advent of Christianity undoubtedly broadened the sphere of woman and
that she was then given her true place as the companion and helper
rather than the toy of man; but long before this period woman had
asserted her right to be heard in the councils of the wise, and the
right seems to have been conceded in the cases where the demand was
made. Those who look upon the present as the emancipation period in the
history of woman have surely forgotten Deborah, whose chant of triumph
was sung in the congregation of the people and was considered worthy of
preservation for all future ages to read; Semiramis, who led her armies
to battle when the Great King, Ninus, had let fall the sceptre from his
weary hand, and who ruled her people with wisdom and justice; and others
whose fame, even if legendary in its details, has come down to us.
Through all the ages there was opportunity for woman, when she chose to
seize it; and in many cases it was thus seized. Rarely indeed do we find
the history of any age unconcerned with its women. Though their part may
at times seem but minor, yet do they stand out to the observant eye as
the prime causes of many of the great events which make or mark epochs.
When we think of the Trojan War, it is Agamemnon and Priam, Achilles and
Hector, who rise up before our mental vision as the protagonists in that
great struggle; but if there had been no Helen, there would have been no
war, and therefore no Iliad or Odyssey. We read Macaulay's stirring
ballad of_ Horatius at the Bridge, _and we thrill at the recital of
strength and daring; but if it had not been for the virtue of Lucretia,
there would have been no combat for the bridge, and the Tarquins might
have ended their days in peace in the Eternal City. And, in later times,
though Mirabeau and Robespierre and Danton and Marat fill the eye of the
student of the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution, it was the
folly of Marie Antoinette that gave these men their opportunity and even
paved the way for the rise and meteoric career of a greater than them
all.
These are instances of mediate influence upon great events; but there
have been many women who ham exerted immediate influence upon the story
of mankind. That which is usually mistermed weakness is generally held
to be a feminine attribute; and if we replace the term by the truer
word,--gentleness,--the statement may be conceded. But there have been
many women who have been strong in the general sense; and these have
usually been terribly strong. Look at Catherine of Russia, vicious to
the core, but powerful in intellect and will above the standard of
masculine rulers. Look at Elizabeth of England, crafty and false, full
of a ridiculous vanity, yet strong with a strength before which even
such men as Burleigh and Essex and Leicester were compelled to bow.
Look at Margaret of Lancaster, fighting in her husband's stead for the
crown of England and by her undaunted spirit plucking victory again and
again from the jaws of defeat, and yielding at last only when deserted
by every adherent. Look at Clytemmstra and Lady Macbeth, creatures of
the poet's fancy if you will, yet true types of a class of femininity.
They have had prototypes and antitypes, and many.
Women have achieved their most decisive and remarkable effects upon the
history of mankind by reaching and clinging to extremes. Extremism is
always a mark of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm accomplishes effects which
must have been left forever unattained by mere regulated and
conscientious effort. The stories of the Christian martyrs show in
golden letters the devotion of women to a cause; and I have no doubt
whatever that it was in the deaths of young maidens, in their hideous
sufferings borne with resignation and even joy, that there came the
conviction of truth which is known as the seed which was sown in the
blood of the martyrs. The high enthusiasm which supported a Catherine
and a Cecilia in their hours of trial was strong to persuade where the
death of a man for his convictions would have been looked upon as a
matter of course. It is from this enthusiasm and extremism that there
sounds one of the key-notes of woman's nature--her loyalty. Loyalty is
one of the blending traits of the sexes; yet, if I were compelled to
attribute it distinctively to one sex, I should class it as feminine in
its nature.
Loyalty to one idea, to one ideal, has been a predominant characteristic
of woman from time immemorial. Sometimes this loyalty takes the form of
patriotism, sometimes of altruism, sometimes of piety in true sense; but
always it has its origin and life in love. The love may be diffused or
concentrated, general or particular, but it is always the soul of the
true woman, and without it she cannot live. Love for her God, love for
her race, love for her country, love for the man whom she delights to
honor--these may exist separately or as one, but exist for her they
must, or her life is barren and her soul but a dead thing. Love, in the
true sense of the word, is the essence of the woman-soul; it is the soul
itself. She must love, or she is dead, however she may seem to live.
That she does not always ask whether the object of her love, be it
abstract or concrete, be worthy of her devotion is not to be attributed
to her as a fault, but rather as a virtue, since the love itself expands
and vivifies her soul if itself be worthy. It is at once the expression
and the expenditure of the unsounded depths of her soul; it is through
its power over her that she recognises her own nature, that she knows
herself for what she is. The woman who has not loved, even in the
ordinary human and limited meaning of the word, has no conception of her
own soul.
Thus far I have spoken of love in its broad sense, as the highest
impulse of the human soul. But there is another and a lower aspect of
love, and this is the one most usually meant when we use the word,--the
attraction of sex. Even thus, though in this aspect love becomes a far
lesser thing, it possesses no less power. The passion of man for woman
has been the underlying cause of all history in its phenomenal aspects.
The favorite example of this power has always been that of Cleopatra and
Mark Antony; but history is full of equally convincing instances.
To love and to be loved; such is the ultimate lot of woman. It matters
not what accessories of existence fate may have to offer; this is the
supreme meaning of life to woman, and it is here that she finds her true
value in the world. She may read that meaning in divers manners; she may
make of her place in life a curse or a blessing to mankind. It matters
not; all returns to the same cause, the same source of power_. _The
strongest woman is weak if she be not loved, for she lacks her chief
weapon with which to conquer; the weakest is strong if she truly have
won love, for through this she can work miracles. Her strength is more
than doubled; heart and brain and hand are in equal measure, for that
with which the heart inspires the brain will be transmitted by the heart
to the hand, and the message will be too imperative to fear failure.
It is a strange thing--though not inexplicable--that your ambitious
woman is far more ruthless, far more unscrupulous, far more determined
to win at any cost, than is the most ambitious of men. Again comes the
law of extreme to show cause that this should be; but the fact is so
sure that cause is of less interest. Not Machiavelli was so false, not
Caligula was so cruel, not Caesar was so careless of right, as the woman
whose political ambition has taken form and strength. That which bars
her path must be swept aside, be it man or notion or principle. She sees
but the one object, her goal, looming large before her; and she moves on
with her eyes fixed, crushing beneath her feet all that would turn her
steps.
I have spoken of the cruelty of an ambitious woman; and it is worth
while to pause a moment to consider this trait as displayed in
women--not as a means, but as an end. There have been men who loved
cruelty for its own sake; but they are few, and their methods crude,
compared with the woman who have felt this strange passion. In the days
of human sacrifices, it was the women who most thronged to the
spectacles, who most eagerly fastened their eyes upon the expiring
victims. In the gladiatorial combats, it was the women who greeted each
mortal thrust with applause, and whose reversed thumbs won the majority
for the signal of death to the vanquished. In the days of terror in
France, it was the woman who led the mob that threatened the king and
queen, and hanged Foulard to a lamp post after almost tearing him to
pieces; it was the women who sat in rows around the guillotine, day
after day, and placidly knit their terrible records of death; it was the
women who cried for more victims, even after the legal murderers of the
tribunals grew weary of their hideous task of condemnation.
Not only thus--not only under the influence of excitement and
passion--but in cold blood, there are instances among women of such
ghastly cruelty that men recoil from the contemplation of such deeds.
There is record of a Slavonic countess whose favorite amusement was to
sit in the garden of her country palace, in the rigors of a Russian
winter, while young girls were stripped by her attendants and water
poured slowly over their bodies, thus giving them a death of enduring
agony and providing the countess with new, though unsubstantial, statues
for her grounds. This not more than two centuries ago, and in the
atmosphere of so-termed Christianity. The annals of the Spanish
Inquisition would be ransacked in vain for such ingenuity of torture;
and though the Inquisitors may have grown to love cruelty for its own
sake, they at least alleged reason for their deeds; the Russian countess
frankly sought amusement alone.
Yet in these things there is to be found no general accusation of women.
That cruelty should be carried by them to its extreme, that they should
love it for its own sake, is but the development of extremism, and is
isolated in examples, at least by periods. The Russian countess was not
cruel because she was a woman, but, being cruel of nature, she was the
more so because of her sex. The ladies of imperial Rome did not love the
sight of flowing blood because they were women, but, being women, they
carried their acquired taste to bounds unknown to the less impulsive and
less ardent nature of men.
Yet there comes a question. Is this lust for blood, this love of
cruelty; latent in every woman and but restrained, by the gentler
teachings and promptings of her more developed nature in its highest
presentation? So some psychists would have us believe; but they have
only slight ground for their sweeping assertion. That civilisation is
but restrained savagery may perhaps be conceded; but if the restraint
has grown to be the ever-dominant impulse, then has the savage been
slain. It is not, as some teach, that such isolated idiosyncrasies as we
have considered are glimpses of the tiger that sleeps in every human
heart and sometimes breaks its chain and runs riot. As a rule, these
things are matters of atmosphere. Setting aside such pure isolations as
that of the Russian countess, it will almost invariably be found that
the display of feminine cruelty, or of any vice, is of a time and place.
There has never been a universal rule of feminine depravity in any age.
Babylon, Carthage, Greece, Rome, and all the olden civilisations have
had their periods when female virtue was a matter of laughter, when
women outvied men in their moral degradation, when evil seemed
triumphant everywhere; but there always remained a few to "redeem the
time," and salvation always came from those few. Moreover, the sphere of
immorality and crime was always limited. The Roman world, when it was
the world indeed, might be given up to vice and sin, displayed in their
most atrocious forms by the women of the Empire; but there still stood
the North, calm, virtuous, patient, awaiting its opportunity to "root
out the evil thing" and to give the world once more a standard of purity
and righteousness. The leaven of Christianity was effective in its work
upon the moral degradation of the Roman Empire; but it was not until the
scourge of the Northmen was sent to the aid of the principle that
success was fully won. So the North was not of the same day with Rome in
civilised vice, and the reign of evil in the Latin Empire was but the
effect of conditions, not the instincts of humanity. Rome was taught
evil by long and steadfast evolution; it did not spring up in a day
with its deadly blight, but was the result of progressive causation.
It may be doubted if the feminine intellect has increased since the dawn
of civilisation. To-day woman stands on a different plane of
recognition, but by reason of assertiveness, not because of increased
mental ability. As with that of man, the possibilities of woman's
intellect were long latent; but they existed, and the result is
development, not creation of fibre. I repeat that I do not believe that
the feminine intellect has grown in power. I doubt if the present age
can show a mind superior in natural strength to that of Sappho; I do not
believe that the present Empress of China, strong woman as she is, is
greater than Semiramis, or that even Elizabeth of England was the equal
of the warrior-queen of Babylon. But there can be no doubt that there
exists a broader culture to-day than ever before and that thus the
intellectual sum of women is always growing, though there comes no
increase in the mental powers of the individual. It has been so with
man. We boast of the mighty achievements of our age; but we have not yet
built such a structure as that of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, or
the Pyramid of Cheops at Ghizeh. We pride ourselves upon our letters;
but the grandest poem ever written by man was also the first of which we
have record--the Book of Job, and we do not even know the name of the
poet who thus set a standard which has never since been reached. We may
claim Shakespeare as the equal of Homer in expression; but it requires
true hero worship among his admirers to place the Elizabethan singer
upon an equality with the old Greek in any other respect. There has been
no growth of individual intellect in either sex since the days of which
we first find record; but there has been an increase of average and a
definition of tendency which are productive of higher general result.
And the natural consequence of this state of things is found in the fact
that even a Sappho in the world of letters would not stand out so
prominently, would not be considered such a prodigy, were she to come in
these days. We should admire her genius and her powers without feeling
the sensation of wonder that these should be possessed by a woman. It is
in the recognition of this fact that we are better enabled to understand
the changing aspect in the relations of women to men during these latter
years. There has been no alteration in the possibilities within the
grasp of the individual, but great change within those which can be
claimed by the sex at large. Women can do no more now than in the olden
days when they were considered as almost inferior to animals; but woman
has profited by the opportunities of her time, and is every day
developing powers until now unsuspected.
[Illustration 12 _ASPASIA After the painting by Henry Holiday. Aspasia
was born in Miletus. At an early age, accompanied by another young girl,
Thargelia, she went to Athens. Their beauty and talents soon won them
distinction--Thargelia married a king of Thessaly, and Aspasia married
Pericles, "more than a king," says Plutarch. The home of Aspasia in
Athens was frequent by the_ elite _of the city and state, attracted by
her beauty, her art of speaking, and her influence. Socrates valued her
great mind, and even called himself one of her disciples. Plato speaks
of her great reputation. She was born in the fifth century before
Christ. The date of her death is not known._]
The whole value of history is in teaching us to understand our own time
and to prognosticate the future with some degree of correctness. More
especially is this true of all class history, and the story of sex
development may be so rated. It is to find the reason of what is and the
nature of what is to come that we turn to the records of the past and
ask them concerning their message to us of these things. In our
retrospective view of woman, we shall, if we are alive to suggestion,
find steadfast tendencies of development. It is true that these
tendencies do not always remain in the light; like rivers, they
sometimes plunge underground and for a time find their paths in
subterranean channels where they are lost to sight; but they always
reemerge, and at last they find their way to the central sea of the
present. Future ages will doubtless mark the course of those tendencies
not only up to but through our own age; for though I have spoken of a
central sea, the simile is hardly correct, inasmuch as the true ocean
which is the goal of these rivers is not yet in the sight of humanity.
But we at least find promise of that ocean in the steadfast and
determined course of the streams which flow toward it; progress has
always a goal, though it may be one long undiscerned by the abettors of
that progress. So it is with the story of woman. We know what she has
been; we see what she is; and it is possible dimly to forecast what she
will be. Yet I dare to assert that there will be no radical change;
there may be new direction for effort, new lines of development, but the
essential nature will remain unaltered. It is not, however, with this
informing spirit that we have to do in such a work as this. There have
been many misconceptions regarding woman; I would not venture to claim
that none now exist. Yet there is a general consensus of agreement
concerning her dominating and effective characteristics, and the
probability is that in these general laws so laid down the common
opinion is of truth.
Of course, I would not dare to make such an absurd claim that there
exists, or has ever existed, a man who could truthfully say that he knew
woman in the abstract; but that does not necessarily mean that knowledge
of the tendencies and characteristics of the sex is impossible. The
reason of the dense ignorance which prevails among men concerning women
is that the men attempt to apply general laws to particular cases; and
that is fatal. It is absolutely necessary, if we are to gather wisdom
and not merely knowledge from our researches in history, that we should
take into account the result of combination of traits. Otherwise we
should not only find nothing but inconsistency as a consequence of our
study, but we should utterly fail to understand the tendencies of that
which we learn. We must be broad in our judgments if we are to judge
truly. When we read of the Spartan women sending forth their sons to die
for their country, we must not believe that they were lacking in the
depth of maternal affection which is one of the most beautiful
characteristics of the feminine nature. Doubtless they suffered as
keenly as does the modern mother at the death of her son; but they were
trained to subordinate their feelings in this wise, and their training
stood them in stead of stoicism. Nay, even when we read of the
profligacy of the women of imperial Rome, we must not look upon these
women as by nature imbruted and degraded, but we must understand that
they but yielded to the spirit of their environment and their schooling.
They were not different at heart, those reckless Maenads and votaries of
Venus, from the chaste Lucretias or holy Catherines of another day; they
simply lacked direction of impulse in right method, and so missed the
culmination of their highest possibilities.
There is an old saying which tells us that women are what men make them.
Thus generally stated, the saying may be summed up as a slander; but it
has an application in history. There can be no doubt that for
millenniums of the world's adolescence women were controlled and their
bearing and place in society modified by the thought of their times,
which thought was of masculine origin and formation. This state of
affairs has long since passed away, and it may be said that for at least
a thousand years, in adaptation of the saying which I have quoted, the
times have been what women have made them. It was the influence of women
which brought about the outgrowths of civilisation in the dawn of
Christianity that have survived until now. It was the influence, if not
the actual activity, of women that was responsible for the birth of
chivalry and the rise of the spirit of purity. It was the influence of
women that made possible such characters as those of Bayard and Sir
Philip Sydney. It was the influence of women that softened the roughness
and licentiousness of a past day into the refinement and virtue which
are the possessions of the present age.
There has always, in the worst days, been an undercurrent of good, and
its source and strength are to be found in the eternal feminine spirit,
which in its true aspects always makes for righteousness.
The world's statues have, with few exceptions, been raised to men, the
world's elegies have been sung of men, the world's acclamations have
been given to men. This is world justice, blind as well as with bandaged
eyes. Were true justice done--were the best results, the results which
live, commemorated in stone, the world itself, to adapt the hyperbole of
the Evangelist, could hardly contain the statues which would be reared
to women. But it is precisely in the cause for this neglect that there
lies the value of the work which has been done by woman for the welfare
of mankind. It is one of the truths of history that the greatest and
most enduring effects have always been accomplished in the least
conspicuous manner.
The man who searches effect for cause must find his goal most often in
the influence of a woman. Not always for good; that could not be. But it
would seem that all that has endured has been for good, and that the
evil which has been wrought by woman--and it has not been slight--has
been ephemeral in all respects. I know of no enduring evil that can be
traced to a woman as its source; but I know of no constant good which
did not find either its beginning or its fostering in a woman's thought
or work. Poppaea leaves but a name; Agrippina leaves an example. It may
be true of men that the evil that they do lives after them, while the
good is oft interred with their bones; but it is not true of women. Of
course, there is a sense in which it is true--in the descent from mother
to son of the spirit of the unrighteous mother; but even this would not
seem to hold as a rule, and the effects are often modified by the
influence of a love for a higher nature. The sum of woman's influence
upon the destinies of the world is good, the balance inclines steadily
toward the best. Woman is the hope of the world.
It is to find the persistence of this influence that we search her
history. Sometimes we shall find strange factors in the equation that
gives the sum, strange methods of attaining the result; but the result
itself is always plain. Nor is there ever entire lack of contemporary
influence of good, even when the evil seems predominant. If we read of
an Argive Helen bringing war and desolation upon a nation, we shall find
in those same pages record of a Penelope teaching the world the beauty
of faith and constancy. If we trace the story of a Cleopatra ruining men
with a smile, we shall find in the same day an Octavia and a Portia. If
we hear of the Capitol betrayed by a Tarpeia, we have not far to seek
for a Cornelia, known to all time as the Mother of the Gracchi. And it
is those who made for good whose names have come down to us as
incentives and examples. The more closely we read our history, the more
surely are we convinced that the tendency has always been upward; the
progress has been steadfast from the beginning, and it has carried the
world with it.
As I began with the statement that the history of woman is the history
of the world, so I end. This truth at least is sure. The earth is very
old; it has seen the coming and the going of many races, it has
witnessed the rise and fall of uncounted dynasties, it has survived
physical and social cataclysms innumerable; and it still holds on its
way, serenely awaiting its end in the purpose of its Creator. What that
end shall be no man may know; but it is the end to which woman shall
lead it.
G.C.L.
Johns Hopkins University.
PREFACE
It is the purpose of this volume to give a simple sketch of the history
of Greek womanhood from the Heroic Age down to Roman times, so far as it
can be gathered from ancient Greek literature and from other available
sources for a knowledge of antique life. Greek civilization was
essentially a masculine one; and it is really remarkable how scant are
the references to feminine life in Greek writers, and how few books have
been written by modern scholars on this subject. In the preparation of
this work, the author has consulted all the authorities bearing on old
Greek life, acknowledgment of which can only be made in general terms.
He feels, however, particularly indebted to the following works: Mlle.
Clarisse Bader, _La Femme Grecque_, Paris, 1872; Jos. Cal. Poestion,
_Griechische Philosophinnen_, Norden, 1885; ibid., _Griechische
Dichterinnen_, Leipzig, 1876; E. Notor, _La Femme dans l'Antiquite
Grecque_, Paris, 1901; R. Lallier, _De la Condition de la Femme
Athenienne au Veme et au IVeme Siecle_, Paris, 1875; Ivo Bruns,
_Frauenemancipation in Athen_, Kiel, 1900; Walter Copeland Perry, _The
Women of Homer_, New York, 1898; Albert Galloway Keller, _Homeric
Society_, London, 1902; and Mahaffy's various works, especially _Social
Life in Greece from Homer to Menander_, and _Greek Life and Thought_. In
making quotations from Greek authors, standard translations have been
used, of which especial acknowledgment cannot always be given, but Lang,
Leaf and Myers' _Iliad_, Butcher's and Lang's _Odyssey_, Wharton's
_Sappho_, and Way's _Euripides_, call for particular mention.
In the spelling of Greek proper names the author has endeavored to adapt
himself to the convenience of his readers by being consistently Roman,
and has used in most cases the Latin forms. He has retained, however,
the Greek forms where usage has made them current, as Poseidon, Lesbos,
Samos, etc., and has invariably adopted forms, neither Greek nor Latin,
which have become universal, as Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, and the
like. The Greek names of Greek divinities have been preferred to their
Roman equivalents.
To conclude, my thanks are due to the publishers for their uniform
courtesy and help, and to Mr. J.A. Burgan for the careful reading of the
proof; nor could I have undertaken and carried through the work without
the sympathetic aid and encouragement of my wife.
MITCHELL CARROLL.
_The George Washington University_.
I
GREEK WOMEN
Whenever culture or art or beauty is theme for thought, the fancy at
once wanders back to the Ancient Greeks, whom we regard as the ultimate
source of all the aesthetic influences which surround us. To them we look
for instruction in philosophy, in poetry, in oratory, in many of the
problems of science. But it is in their arts that the Greeks have left
us their richest and most beneficent legacy; and when we consider how
much they have contributed to the world's civilization, we wonder what
manner of men and women they must have been to attain such achievements.
Though woman's influence is exercised silently and unobtrusively, it is
none the less potent in determining the character and destiny of a
people. Historians do not take note of it, men overlook and undervalue
it, and yet it is ever present; and in a civilization like that of the
Greeks, where the feminine element manifests itself in all its higher
activities,--in its literature, its art, its religion,--it becomes an
interesting problem to inquire into the character and status of woman
among the Greek peoples. We do not desire to know merely the purely
external features of feminine life among the Greeks, such as their
dress, their ornaments, their home surroundings; we would, above all,
investigate the subjective side of their life--how they regarded
themselves, and were regarded by men; how they reasoned, and felt, and
loved; how they experienced the joys and sorrows of life; what part they
took in the social life of the times; how their conduct influenced the
actions of men and determined the course of history; what were their
moral and spiritual endowments;--in short, we should like to know the
Greek woman in all those phases of life which make the modern woman
interesting and influential and the conserving force in human society.
Yet, when we estimate our sources of information, we find that there is
no problem in the whole range of Greek life so difficult of solution as
that concerning the status and character of Greek women.
The first condition of a successful study of Greek women is to
familiarize one's self with the _milieu_ in which they lived and moved.
To do this we must adapt ourselves to a manner of life and to
conceptions and feelings widely different from our own. The Greek spirit
of the fifth century before the Christian era has but little in common
with the spirit of the twentieth century; and unless we gain some
insight into the spirit of the Greeks, we cannot understand the
fundamental differences between the life of the Greek woman and that of
the modern woman. Let us note a few respects in which this difference
shows itself.
The Greek attitude toward nature was that of reverent children who saw
everywhere therein manifestations of the divine. To them everything was
what we call supernatural. If wine gladdened the heart of man, it was
the influence of a god. If love stirred the breast, a god was inspiring
man with a sweet influence, and the divine power must not be resisted.
The gods themselves yielded to the impulses of love; why should not men?
Furthermore, Greek thought conceived of the human being as the noblest
creation of nature. Christian theology conceives of the body as the
prison house of the soul, from which the soul must escape to attain its
highest development; the Greeks, on the other hand, regarded body and
soul as forming a complete, inseparable, and harmonious unit. There was
no impulse toward distinguishing between the two, no restless reaching
out toward something regarded as higher and nobler; seeing infinite
possibilities in man as man, the Greek sought only the idealization of
the human being as such, the completion and realization of the highest
type of humanity, physical and spiritual. Because of this peculiar
conception of man, the gods of the Greeks rose out of nature and did not
transcend it. Some of them were personifications of the forces of
nature; others were merely, according to Greek ideas, the highest
conceptions of what was admirable in man and woman. When we consider the
goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon, we see that this conception of the
ideal in woman must have been very high, manifesting itself in the
characters of Hera, the goddess of marriage and of the birth of
children; Athena, "intellect unmoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of
serene, unclouded wisdom;" Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of the
domestic life; Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty and the
idealization of feminine graces and charm; Artemis, the maiden divinity
never conquered by love, and the protectress of maidens; and Hestia,
goddess of the hearth and preserver of the sanctity of the home.
It is difficult for us to appreciate the passionate love of beauty which
animated the Greeks.
"What is good and fair
Shall ever be our care.
That shall never be our care
Which is neither good nor fair."
This immortal burden from the stanzas of Theognis, sung by the Muses and
Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, "strikes," says Symonds,
"the keynote to the music of the Greek genius." This innate love of
beauty, fostered by natural surroundings and held in restraint by a
sense of measure, was the most salient characteristic of the Greek
people. It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek
feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of
earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of
Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in
his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom
perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not
from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an
exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of
the divine Aphrodite. They were inspired with awe, and would have deemed
it sacrilege to mar or destroy such a perfect masterpiece of creative
power." Nor was the Greek conception of beauty purely sensual. Through
the perfection of human loveliness they had glimpses of divine beauty,
and "the fleshly vehicle was but the means to lead on the soul to what
is eternally and imperishably beautiful." Thus the lesson of the
_Phaedrus_ and _Symposium_ of Plato is that "the passion which grovels in
the filth of sensual grossness may be transformed into a glorious
enthusiasm, a winged splendor, capable of rising to the contemplation of
eternal verities and reuniting the soul of man to God."
This last reflection leads us to the most important difference between
ancient and modern conceptions, that in regard to the relations between
the sexes. We of the Christian era have a clear doctrine of right and
wrong to guide us, a law given from without ourselves, the result of
revelation. The Greeks, on the other hand, "had to interrogate nature
and their own hearts for the mode of action to be pursued. They did not
feel or think that one definite course of action was right and the
others wrong; but they had to judge in each case whether the action was
becoming, whether it was in harmony with the nobler side of human
nature, whether it was beautiful or useful. Utility, appropriateness,
and the sense of the beautiful were the only guides which the Greeks
could find to direct them in the relations of the sexes to each other."
Hence we find that the Greeks deemed permissible much which offends the
modern sense of propriety; for example, when maidens captured in war
became for a time the concubines of the victors, as Chryseis in the
Iliad, and were afterward restored to their homes, they were not thought
in the least disgraced by their misfortune; "for if such a stain happen
to a woman by force of circumstances," says Xenophon, "men honor her
none the less if her affection seems to them to remain untainted."
How, then, are we to bridge over the gulf which separates us from the
Greeks? What are our sources of knowledge of Greek woman and her manner
of life?
We must first of all know the country of the Greeks. The influence of
country and climate on the Greek nationality has been frequently
emphasized, and the physical phenomena which moulded the characters of
the men must also have affected the women. A climate so mild that, as
Euripides says, "the cold of winter is without rigor, and the shafts of
Phoebus do not wound;" a soil midway between harsh sterility and
luxurious vegetation; a system of fertile plains and rugged plateaus and
varied mountain chains; a coast indented with innumerable inlets and
gulfs and bays--these were the physical characteristics which moulded
the destinies of Greek women. Furthermore, the modern Greek people trace
the threads of their history unbroken back to ancient times, in spite
of the incursions of alien peoples and years of subjugation to the Turk.
Many ancient customs survive, such as the giving of a dowry and the
bathing of the bride before the wedding ceremony. On the islands of the
AEgean, where there has been but little intercourse with foreigners, the
type of features so familiar to us from Greek sculpture still prevails,
and the visitor can see beautiful maidens who might have served as
models for Phidias and Praxiteles. The configuration of the land led to
the Greek conception of the city-state--the feature of internal polity
which had most to do with the seclusion of women.
Greek literature, however, is our chief source of knowledge in this
regard, yet even the information afforded by that literature is
inadequate and unsatisfactory in the glimpses it gives of the life of
woman. All that we know about Greek women, with the exception of the
fragments of Sappho's poems, is derived from chronicles written by men.
Now, men never write dispassionately about women. They either love or
hate them; they either idealize or caricature them. Furthermore, Greek
literature was not only written by men, but also by men for men. The
Greek reading public, the audience at the theatre, the gathering in the
Assembly and in the law courts, were almost exclusively masculine.
Remarks indicating the inferiority of the frailer but more fascinating
sex are even in our day not altogether displeasing to the average man,
and constitute one of the stock _motifs_ of humor; hence it is not to be
taken too seriously that on the Greek stage there was much abuse of
woman--though this is offset by passages in which the sex is
extravagantly praised. Euripides was once called a woman hater in the
presence of Sophocles. "Yes," was the clever response, "in his
tragedies."
Then, aside from the point of view of the writer, only meagre facts can
be gleaned here and there from Greek literature regarding the life of
Greek women. Only by gathering and comparing disparate passages
collected from writers of different views, of different States, and of
different periods, can we get anything like a systematic presentation of
the outward aspect of feminine life. We are more fortunate, however,
when we consider the subjective side; for the Greek epos and drama
present feminine portraitures which necessarily reflect, more or less
clearly, the thought and feelings of woman in the age in which the poet
flourished. Homer gives an accurate portrayal of the Heroic Age, on the
borderland of which his own life was passed, while memories of it were
still fresh in the minds of men. The Athenian tragedians also locate
their plots in the Heroic Age, but they endow their characters with a
depth of thought, with a power of reflection, with an insight into the
problems of life, which were altogether foreign to men and women in the
childhood of the world, and were characteristic of Athens in its
brilliant intellectual epoch. Hence a history of Greek womanhood must
draw largely from the works of the poets, and must endeavor to give a
picture of the women who figure in the Iliad and the Odyssey and in the
dramas of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The lyric poets of Greece
are also of unique importance in the study of ancient humanity, for they
reveal the hearts of men and women and make known the conflicts of the
soul. The historical women of Hellas are few in number, and are known to
us only through meagre passages in the historians, orators, and
philosophers.
A third source of information is Greek art. When woman figures so
largely in the few relics of antiquity which have come down to us
intact, what a commentary on ancient womanhood must the art of the
Greeks have been, before the ruthless hands of Romans and barbarians and
the tooth of time effaced her most precious treasures! The vase
paintings of the Greeks illustrate every phase of private life, and
abound in representations of the maiden and the matron, in the home, at
the loom, in the bridal procession, at the wedding. And Greek sculpture
presents ideal types of woman, perfect physically and highly endowed
with every intellectual and sensuous charm. From these works of plastic
art, abounding in the museums of Europe, we know that the Greek woman
was beautiful, the peer of man in physical excellence. In form, the
Greek woman was so perfect as to be still taken as the type of her sex.
"Her beauty, from whatever cause, bordered closely upon the ideal, or
rather was that which, because now only found in works of art, we call
the ideal. But our conceptions of form never transcend what is found in
nature. She bounds our ideas by a circle over which we cannot step. The
sculptors of Greece represented nothing but what they saw; and even when
the cunning of their hand was most felicitous, even when love and grace
and all the poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles,
the inferiority of their imitation to the creations of God, in
properties belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and
development of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon
Phidias, that high priest of art, how childish it was to rise above
nature." But it is not merely physical perfection which appeals to us in
these masterpieces of plastic art. Love and tenderness and every womanly
charm find expression in every feature of the countenance; and there is,
above all, a moral dignity, an elevation of soul, a spiritual fervor,
which lift us from things of earth and impart aspirations toward the
eternal. The women who gave insight and inspiration to the sculptor in
his portrayal of Hera and of Athena and of Aphrodite must have possessed
in some measure the qualities imparted by the artist to his works. The
status of woman among the Greeks differs according to the period, tribe,
and form of government, and all the various phases of life and
civilization arising from these must be taken into consideration in
reaching our conclusions. Greek history falls into certain well-defined
periods which are distinct in culture and civilization. There is first
the Heroic Age, portrayed in Greek mythology and in the Homeric poems,
the age of demigods and valiant warriors and noble women. This is the
monarchical period in Greek history. Kings presided over the destinies
of men, and about them were gathered the nobles. Society was
aristocratic; the life portrayed was the life of courts. A court made a
queen necessary; and where there is a queen, woman is always a source of
influence and power for good or evil, and wins either the deference and
regard, or the fear and resentment of men. Succeeding the Heroic Age,
there followed the "storm and stress" period in Greek life, when
monarchies were overturned and gave place to oligarchies, and they, in
turn, to tyrannies; when commerce was developing, colonies were being
sent out to distant parts of the Mediterranean, and the aristocratic
classes were enjoying the results of wealth and travel and the
interchange of social courtesies. In this period, epic poetry declined,
and lyric poetry took its place in the three forms of elegiac, iambic,
and melic; the arts, too, were beginning to be cultivated. This is the
Transition Age of Greece. In aristocratic circles, among the families of
the oligarchs and in the courts of tyrants, woman continued to hold a
prominent place; but among the poorer classes, who were ground down by
the aristocrats, life was hard and bitter, and woman was censured as
the source of many of the ills of mankind.
The Transition Age constitutes the portal admitting to Historical Greece
proper. In most communities, the levelling process has gone on, and
democracies have taken the place of oligarchies and tyrannies. The
people have asserted themselves and are regnant. It is a noteworthy fact
in Greek history that where democracy prevailed woman was least highly
regarded and had fewest privileges. In Athens, where democracy was
all-controlling, feminine activities were confined largely to the
women's apartments of the house. In other cities, oligarchies continued
to have power, and an aristocracy was still recognized, as at Sparta;
and here the privileges and freedom of woman were very great.
The early tribal divisions among the Greeks must also be taken into
consideration. The Achaeans are closely identified with the Heroic Age;
they built up the powerful States in the Peloponnesus, and undertook the
first great national expedition of Hellas. Thus the Achaeans are the
representative Homeric people, with its monarchical life and the
prominent social status of its women. The Achaean civilization gave way
before the Dorian migration, and ceased to be a factor in Greek history.
Of the three remaining divisions, the AEolians inhabited parts of
Thessaly, Boeotia, and especially the island of Lesbos, and the Greek
colonies of Asia Minor along the shores of the North AEgean. Their most
brilliant period was during the Transition Age, when Lesbos was ruled by
a wealthy and powerful aristocracy and later by a tyranny, and when
lyric poetry reached its perfect bloom in the verses of Sappho. AEolian
culture was marked by its devotion to music and poetry and by its
richness and voluptuousness. At no other time and place in the whole
history of Hellas did woman possess so much freedom and enjoy all the
benefits of wealth and culture in so marked a degree as among the AEolian
people of Lesbos.