Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/28

12 human nature into their council. As long as the world stands women have been the victims of this error on the one side, and of Sultanic brutality on the other, and it is doubtful whether they have more reason to complain of the Sultans or of the Spartans.

The treatment of women took on a milder and more humane form with the more civilized and more æsthetical Athenians. But a real appreciation of woman was unknown even among that people who adored the ideal of the fair sex in the goddess of love, who had the most humane conception of love among all the nations, whose mythology developed into the most beautiful and most attractive romances of love, and who often depicted in their poetry the feminine excellences with the clearest perception. Also among the Athenians the State was in a certain sense the despot; the State which received especial weight by contrast with foreign foes, was the worldly deity to which everything was sacrificed except its priests, and these priests were, of course, the men, the women were the victims. The Athenians also regarded the State as an end, not as means to an end; they made it an object of religion rather than the mere framework of the body social. This State, this republic, was moreover continually called into question, now by native, now by foreign tyrants. But who was to save the State, in whose hands was placed its safety? In the