lves, and were regarded by men; how they reasoned, and felt, and
loved; how they experienced the joys and sorrows of life; what part they
took in the social life of the times; how their conduct influenced the
actions of men and determined the course of history; what were their
moral and spiritual endowments;--in short, we should like to know the
Greek woman in all those phases of life which make the modern woman
interesting and influential and the conserving force in human society.
Yet, when we estimate our sources of information, we find that there is
no problem in the whole range of Greek life so difficult of solution as
that concerning the status and character of Greek women.

The first condition of a successful study of Greek women is to
familiarize one's self with the _milieu_ in which they lived and moved.
To do this we must adapt ourselves to a manner of life and to
conceptions and feelings widely different from our own. The Greek spirit
of the fifth century before the Christian era has but little in common
with the spirit of the twentieth century; and unless we gain some
insight into the spirit of the Greeks, we cannot understand the
fundamental differences between the life of the Greek woman and that of
the modern woman. Let us note a few respects in which this difference
shows itself.

The Greek attitude toward nature was that of reverent children who saw
everywhere therein manifestations of the divine. To them everything was
what we call supernatural. If wine gladdened the heart of man, it was
the influence of a god. If love stirred the breast, a god was inspiring
man with a sweet influence, and the divine power must not be resisted.
The gods themselves yielded to the impulses of love; why should not men?
Furthermore, Greek thought conceived of the human being as the noblest
creation of nature. Christian theology conceives of the body as the
prison house of the soul, from which the soul must escape to attain its
highest development; the Greeks, on the other hand, regarded body and
soul as forming a complete, inseparable, and harmonious unit. There was
no impulse toward distinguishing between the two, no restless reaching
out toward something regarded as higher and nobler; seeing infinite
possibilities in man as man, the Greek sought only the idealization of
the human being as such, the completion and realization of the highest
type of humanity, physical and spiritual. Because of this peculiar
conception of m