THE ATHENIAN WOMAN

Divergent views have been entertained by writers who have discussed the
social position of woman at Athens and the estimation in which she was
held by man. Many scholars have asserted that women were held in a
durance not unlike that of the Oriental harem, that their life was a
species of vassalage, and that they were treated with contempt by the
other sex; while the few have contended that there existed a degree of
emancipation differing but slightly from that of the female sex in
modern times. As is usually the case, the truth lies in the golden mean
between these two extremes; and a careful perusal of Greek authors, with
the judgment directed to the spirit of their references to women rather
than to a literal interpretation of disparate passages, will show that
the status of the freeborn Athenian woman, while by no means ideal or
conforming to our present standards, was far better than is usually
conceded by the writers upon Greek life.

It cannot be denied, however, that the social position of the Athenian
woman was far inferior to that of the woman of the Heroic Age, and that,
despite the boasted democracy and freedom of thought of the period,
woman's status in the years of republican Athens was a reproach to the
advanced culture and love of the good and the beautiful of which the
city of the violet crown was the exponent. There had been a revolution
in the habits of life of the Greeks since the days when Homer sang of
the women of heroic Greece, and the student does not have to search far
to discover the principal causes of the change.

The chief of these is the Greek idea of the city-state, which reached
its highest development in Athens. Citizenship was, as a rule,
hereditary, and every possible legal measure was taken to preserve its
purity. The main principle of this hereditary citizenship was that the
union from which the child was sprung must be one recognized by the
State. This was accomplished by requiring a legitimate marriage, either
through betrothal by a parent or guardian, or through assignment by a
magistrate. Pericles revised the old conditions, which had become lax
during the tyranny, by passing a measure limiting citizenship to those
who were born of two Athenian parents. Greater stress was laid on the
citizenship of the mother than on that of the father, as the child was
regarded as belonging naturally to the mother. It was possible to
increase the citizen body by a vote