Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/31

Rh conceptions. According to these, among other things, marriages were allowed inside the family, in case they were sanctioned or ordered by the patriarch; and the power of the head of the family was so great that the father could decide over the life or death of his new-born children, or could deprive them completely of all family rights.

It is of interest to take note here of the view the Greek writers held of women and their position, as well as of marriage. I will, therefore, interpose a few significant passages, not indeed from the poets, but from political and_ philosophical prose writers.

Demosthenes says very briefly and with a true Solonic spirit: "The married woman is an instrument for the procreation of legitimate children and the management of the household." The cynical, statesmanlike disdain to which the greatest orator gives utterance in these words throws a very clear light on the then existing conceptions of the rights and dignity of woman. Demosthenes stands on a level with Diogenes, who called woman a necessary evil.

Thucydides is of the opinion that "those wives deserve the highest praise of whom neither good nor bad is spoken outside of the house" — a domestic plant, so to speak, a vegetating stay-at-home, who will serve her husband as an instrument as well as possible, but is not to concern herself about anything else. This sentiment of Thucydides has