Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/141

 THE HEBREW WOMAN.

the Asiatic tinge, which the Ionic Greeks received, both by their contact with Lydia, and by the Persian conquest of lonia, as it certainly introduced lower notions con- cerning the social position of women, so it also affected fashionable life at Athens. . . . I think that some such inﬂuence as this should he conceded, and it will help to explain the extraordinary phenomenon before us. I mean, how imperial Athens, the home of the arts and of literature, the centre, perhaps, even then, of social reﬁne- ment in Greece —though this is doubtful —how this Athens, which had thoroughly solved the problem of the extension of privileges to all citizens, had retrograded as to women; and, if not in practice, yet certainly in theory, denied them that rea- sonable liberty which all the older Greek literature shows them to have hitherto possessed.”" The heroines of Homer's verse, and of /Eschylus’ and Sophocles’ dramas, had, indeed, given place to women of another type. Antigone and Electra found no successors in alater age. The /teiairzz alone were permitted to be ac- complished and learned, and the Greeks never advanced suﬁicientlyin their civili- zation to wish to see Aspasia's learning and cultivation united to the modesty and pur- ity of their own \vives and daugliters.

The Roman woman bears a greater re- semblance to her Hebrew sister, and has bequeathed to the pages of history and literature many an honoured name. Who can forget the heroic maidens, Clelia and Valeria; Lucretia, who chose death rather than dishonour; Voluionia, the high-spirit- ed mother of Coriolanus; Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi; or Portia, the wife of Brutus? Although the Roman wife was, like the whole household, entirely subordinate to the husband, she was habit- ullly treated with respect. She appears as the mistress of her household, instruct- ress of her children, and guardian of the honour of the house. Walking abroad was only limited by scruple and custom, not by law, or the jealous will of the hus- band. The women frequented public theatres no less than the men, and took their places with them at festive banquets.

' See chap. vi., p. 43, “Social Life in Greene."

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Through all the earlier ages, the descrip- tion of the Roman woman is simple and grand, but when the republic fell, when extravagant luxury overspread the land, the character of the Roman woman dete- riorated. She became cruel and'voluptu- ous. Conjugal ﬁdelity grew rare, and at last \ve arrive at the degrading and terrible pictures of the Agrippinas and Messalinas oi the empire.

There remain to be considered the Teu- ton and the Hebrew women, and it is cer- tainly not a little remarkable that the posi- tion of the sex should have had so many points of similarity in the two races, which, in ancient and modern times, have led the religious movements of the world, and exercised the greatest inﬂuence upon the spiritual nature of mankind.‘ We read in Tacitus that the Teutons “suppose some- what of sanctity or prescience to be inhe- rent in the female sex, and therefore neither despise their counsels nor disre- gard their responses. We have beheld in the reign of Vespasian, Velida, long rev- erenced by many as a deity. Aurima, moreover, and several others, were for- merly held in equal veneration, but not with a servile ﬂattery, nor as though they made them goddesses.” T

From the time that the Hebrews be- came a nation, having their own laws, re- ligion, and rulers, their women were free and independent, and this Very independ- ence, which produced strength of char- acter, became theirhonour and their glory. To be strong and brave was, as we have seen, the ideal contained in that prophecy which King Le1'nuel’s mother taught him.

- Aslhepureiailh in 0»: Godfouni-1 its mutter- vent upholden and apostles among the Hebrews. who transmitted it to other nations, so the ESSEHCE or that Sam: monotheistic iaixh was rescued by the Teutnn race .-it the great Relormation from being corrriplerl into 2 new phase or idolatry, and iron. becoming in- compatible with the spirit or progress and civilization. Thus there is .-. striking bond between the old Hebrew and the medireval Telltml. and the lervent religious tceling which characterixed both nations (:1 the senti- men! 01 an characterized the Greeks) mayyvell have nourished that tender devotion which rh. Hebrew and Teutnu men alike showed to the women at their race, and have given rise to that heroic spirit evinced by the women of Palestine, no less than by the women 0! Ger- many.

r Sec Tacitus’ treatise on “The Situation, Man- nets, and inhabinnu of oerrnany.