e of seven, and the Spartan maiden, while living at home, was
subject to stringent regulations formulated and enforced by the State.

Woman is intuitively interested in domestic duties, in housekeeping and
clothes mending, and in caring for the innumerable wants of husband and
children. Yet the _Syssitia_, or public meals, deprived her of the
society of husband and sons, and took from her domestic cares because
they were deemed too menial for a free Spartan. "Female slaves," averred
Lycurgus, "are good enough to sit at home spinning and weaving; but who
can expect a splendid offspring--the appropriate mission and duty of a
free Spartan woman toward her country--from mothers brought up in such
occupations?"

Although the Spartan system prescribed rigid discipline for the Spartan
woman up to the time of motherhood, after that time it left her life
altogether unregulated by law. Plato, who was in many respects a great
admirer of the Spartans, criticises this singular defect. He found fault
with a system which regarded woman only as a mother, and consequently,
when children had been born and turned over to the State, did not by law
provide occupation for the mothers or in any way regulate their conduct.
There was nothing to restrain their luxury or keep them loyal to duty
and probity. Higher culture was discouraged, intercourse with strangers
was forbidden, and woman was left largely to her own devices for
employment and recreation; but she was deprived in large measure of the
usual feminine occupations. During the old days, when the State was the
all in all of the citizens, and the mothers were urging on husbands and
sons to valiant deeds, the evils of the Lycurgan system did not show
themselves; but when the crisis came, and Sparta lost her supremacy in
Greek affairs, then old manners gave way, vice and weakness rushed in,
and men and women alike were debauched and evil.

Aristotle, who was at his zenith during the latter part of the fourth
century before Christ, is severe in his denunciations of the license of
the Spartan women. This he regards as defeating the intention of the
Spartan constitution and subversive of the good order of the State. He
argues that, while Lycurgus sought to make the whole State hardy and
temperate, and succeeded in the case of the men, he had not done so with
the women, who lived in every sort of intemperance and luxury. He
charges that the Spartan men are under the domination of their
wives