Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/402

 886 HISTORY OF GREECE. Marriage was almost universal among the citizens, enforced by general opinion at least, if not by law. The young Spartan carried away his bride by a simulated abduction, but she still seems, for some time at least, to have continued to reside with her family, visiting her husband in his barrack in the disguise of male attire, and on short and stolen occasions. 1 To some married couples, according to Plutarch, it happened, that they had been married long enough to have two or three children, while they had scarcely seen each other apart by daylight. Secret intrigue on the part of married women was unknown at Sparta ; but to bring together the finest couples was regarded by the citizens as desirable, and by the lawgiver as a duty. No personal feeling or jealousy on the part of the husband found sympathy from any one, and he permitted without difficulty, sometimes actively en- couraged, compliances on the part of his wife, consistent with (his generally acknowledged object. So far was such toleration carried, that there were some married women who were recog- nized mistresses of two houses, 2 and mothers of two distinct families, a sort of bigamy strictly forbidden to the men, and never permitted, except in the remarkable case of king Anaxandrides, when the royal Herakleidan line of Eurysthenes was in danger of becoming extinct. The wife of Anaxandrides being childless, the ephors strongly urged him, on grounds of public necessity, to repudiate her and marry another. But he refused to dismiss a wife who had given him no cause of complaint ; upon which, when they found him inexorable, they desired him to retain her, but to marry another wife besides, in order that at any rate there might be issue* to the Eurystheneid line. " He thus (says 1 Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 15 ; Xcnoph. Rep. Lac. i. 5. Xenophon does not make any allusion to the abduction as a general custom. There occurred cases in which it was real and violent: see Herod, v. 65. Demaratus carried off and married the betrothed bride of Leotychides. 2 Xenoph. Rep. Lac. i. 9. Ei 6e TIC av yvvai.K.1 p.lv awoiKelv pj /Jou/ioiTo, TEKVUV 6e aZtoTioyav tTridvfioiri, nal rovry vofiov iTroiqaev, r/vnva av EVTCK- vov KO.I yevvaiav 6p ol re uvdpef u6e%ovi; Tolf natal npoaXauSuveiv, l TOV fiev yevouj *ai r^f dvvapeui KOivuvovai, ruv de xprj/mruv oi'K dvnirot- ma