Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/240

 Legal Position of Women in Ancient Greece. is she?'" By the way, Hyperides was the gentleman who so successfully defended Phryne. The Hetairae had more liberty, but in Athens liberty for women was quite incom patible with delicacy, modesty or refinement. Solon made sumptuary laws for the guid ance of women, forbidding them, for in stance, to tear their garments at a funeral, or to travel at night except in a carriage with a torchbearer and a light in front, or to walk abroad attended by more than one servant unless drunk (drunkenness was among their peculiar besetting sins), or any woman to go out at night, unless she in tended to act the part of a courtesan. Nor could she leave the city with more than an obolus' worth of provisions, nor with a basket higher than a cubit. In Plutarch's time there were certain officers whose special duty it was to punish women who transgressed in these particulars. In Syracuse these officials had such authority that, it is said, a woman could not go out on the street, even by day, and attended by a servant, without their per mission. In Thebes it was a breach of eti quette for women to walk freely about the streets. Some authorities held that marriage did not make the husband the guardian of his wife, and that that office remained in the father or whoever had it before the nuptials. If the husband had been adopted by the father, or the wife had been left to him by her father's will then, indeed, on the latter's death, the husband became guardian. When ever he did become guardian he could give his wife away in marriage to another man, or direct by his will to whom she should be married. Married women in Sparta were forbidden to attend gymnastic contests, although the unmarried ones might do so; and when they appeared on the streets they had to wear veils. A man in Sparta was permitted to have but one wife at a time, as a rule, but it is possible that a species of dyandry, or even

215

polyandry, was tolerated by custom among the women. Not only did it sometimes happen that several brothers lived together with one wife in common, but it was also not considered objectionable for an older man, who no longer felt himself capable of his marital duties, to make over his privileges to a young and more vigorous friend whose child would be brought up as his own; and sometimes, a man who was attracted more by his friend's wife than his own, was allowed by his friend to participate in his marital duties. The laws of Lycurgus permitted this; and so did those ofSolon, provided the chosen lover was very near of kin to the old man. A wife to whom overtures of this kind were made by some well-favored young man probably did not consider herself insulted, but referred her lover to her husband whose will she was bound to follow. When public opinion allowed all this, we can readily be lieve the assertion that adultery on the part of women was rare, or unheard of, in Sparta. It was not necessary. Students of Roman history will remember in this connection the story of Hortensius, Cato and Marcia. King Anaxandrides was compelled to take a second wife, because his own bore him no children. The ephors exercised a specially careful attention over the conduct of the queens, so that no scion of other blood should be clandestinely admitted into the gens of the Hcraclidae. According to Pausanius, the ancient Greeks considered the remarriage of a widow an insult to her former consort. The woman who remarried was considered as having offended against public decency. Nor was the second marriage of men viewed more favorably. Alexander in his " History of Women " tells us, that " Charonides ex cluded all those from the councils of the State who had children and married a second time. It is impossible (said he) that a man can advise well for his country, who does not consult the good of his own family; he whose first marriage has been happy,