Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/26

10 housewife, with more liberty of action, and more highly respected. The Homeric descriptions show this stage in its best light. The woman is no longer under surveillance, as in the harem, where the man visits her when it suits his pleasure and fancy, but she has also free access to the man. She has control of the department of the interior, is the hostess of the house, and does the honors in receiving guests. But in spite of this more favored position, the rights which are granted woman are rooted in the interests and the will of the man, not in a true ethical recognition. The dependence of women was, on the contrary, still so great in this stage that the sons had the power to remarry their mothers to whomsoever they pleased; men could keep concubines as they liked, etc.

A further development marks the transition of private control of woman to public or political control of her. In this respect the Spartans took the lead with a truly classical despotism. With them every regard for nature, for humanity, for morality, for liberty disappeared before the regard for that State which Lycurgus seems to have called to life in order to show that mankind could furnish an energetic mind with the material for the realization of every extravagance. Women served the Spartans only for the bearing of children, of young Spartans. If children could be brought into the world by a mill or some other kind of