family was held up by both law and custom, and although
concubinage and the intercourse with hetairai was suffered, nay
favored, by the state, still such impure elements never intruded on
domestic relations.

Our following remarks refer, of course, only to the better classes,
the struggle for existence by the poor being nearly the same in all
ages. In the seclusion of the gynaikonitis the maiden grew up in
comparative ignorance. The care bestowed on domestic duties and on her
dress was the only interest of her monotonous existence. Intellectual
intercourse with the other sex was wanting entirely. Even where
maidens appeared in public at religious ceremonies, they acted
separately from the youths. An intercourse of this kind, at any rate,
could not have a lasting influence on their culture. Even marriage did
not change this state of things. The maiden only passed from the
gynaikonitis of her father into that of her husband. In the latter,
however, she was the absolute ruler. She did not share the
intellectual life of her husband--one of the fundamental conditions of
our family life. It is true that the husband watched over her honor
with jealousy, assisted by the gynaikonomoi, sometimes even by means
of lock and key. It is also true that common custom protected a
well-behaved woman against offence; still her position was only that
of the mother of the family. Indeed, her duties and achievements were
hardly considered by the husband, in a much higher light than those of
a faithful domestic slave.

In prehistoric times the position of women seems to have been, upon
the whole, a more dignified one. Still, even then, their duties were
essentially limited to the house, as is proved, for instance, by the
words in which Telemachus bids his mother mind her spindle and loom,
instead of interfering with the debates of men. As the state became
more developed, it took up the whole attention of the man, and still
more separated him from his wife. Happy marriages, of course, were by
no means impossible; still, as a rule, the opinion prevailed of the
woman being by nature inferior to the man, and holding a position of a
minor with regard to civic rights. This principle has, indeed, been
repeatedly pronounced by ancient philosophers and lawgivers. Our
remarks hitherto referred chiefly to the Ionic-Attic tribe, renowned
for the modesty of its women and maidens. The Doric principle,
expressed in the constitution of Sparta, gave, on the