ain individuals."...

With the growth of civilisation a few girls, the hierodules, were set
apart for the purpose of pacifying the offended deities and their act
ransomed the rest of the female citizens.

It was not on erotic grounds, but for political and social reasons that
the Greek introduced monogamy. The reason which weighed in the scales
more heavily than all others was the necessity for legitimate offspring.
It was natural that a man of property should desire a legitimate heir
who would inherit it on his death. The right of succession from father
to son, incorporated later on in the Roman Right, originated during this
period. But this was not the only advantage connected with the
possession of a son: religion taught that after death the body required
sacrificial food which could only be provided by the legitimate male
descendants of the deceased. (The same belief was held by the Indians
and Eastern Asiatics.) In several Greek States marriage was compulsory
and bachelors were fined. At the same time the contraction of a marriage
did not interfere with the personal freedom of the man; he was at
liberty to go to the hetaerae for intellectual stimulation (unless he
happened to prefer the friends of his own sex) and to his slaves for the
pleasures of the senses. His wife, although she was not free, was
respected by him as the guardian of his hearth and children. There was
but one legal reason for divorce: sterility, which frustrated the object
of matrimony. Conjugal love as we understand it did not exist; it is a
feeling which was entirely unknown to the ancients.

With the exception of the gradually weakening hold of religion on the
imagination of the people towards the decline of the Roman Empire, no
perceptible change occurred in the social life of the old world until
the dawn of the Middle Ages. To quote Otto Seeck: "A wife had no other
task than to produce legitimate offspring; and yet she gave herself airs
and graces, embittered her husband's life with her jealousy and bad
temper or, worse even, set all tongues wagging with her evil conduct. Is
it to be wondered at that marriage was merely regarded as a duty to the
State, and that a great number of men were not sufficiently patriotic to
take such a burden upon their shoulders?"

Thus the victory of the male spiritual principle over universal sexual
intercourse ushered in the second stage which checked the sexual impulse
and directed it upon certain individua