Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/679

Rh to escape these demands. The extravagance of the poet is indication enough that he knew the futility of such efforts as were made by Euelpides and Peithetærus.

The family is treated by Aristophanes from three points of view. First, as to the relation of husband and wife, the poet sees their mutual dependence and makes this fact the central feature of the Lysistrata. In the parabasis of the Thesmophoriazousæ (786 f.) the attitude of husbands toward their wives, the way they speak ill of their wives while at the same time they guard these "plagues" as most precious, is cleverly described:

Finally in the Clouds the fact that Strepsiades has taken a wife from a higher social station than his own is one of the factors that complicate the plot. Their tastes differ at every point; she involves her husband in the debts from which he is trying to escape, and she wants to bring up their son as a member of the class in society from which she came.

Secondly, Aristophanes points out that the home is the woman's sphere, and that she wins credit by proper management of it. His women complain that the dramas of Euripides had made the Athenians very suspicious of their wives. If one were to take the representation of the women by comedy as the criterion, he would regard the opinion attributed to Euripides as only too well founded; Aristophanes, however, is consciously