The Spartan women were better off than their neighbors; and, in
consequence, we get glimpses of a higher type of womanhood. The Spartan
mother has furnished a theme for the pen of every ancient Greek
historian. Under the Lycurgean system, women were considered "as a part
of the State," and not simply household articles belonging to their
husbands--chattels to be disposed of according to the supreme pleasure
of their masters. Free women were trained for the service of the State
with scarcely less severity than men. Lycurgus remarks: "Female slaves
are good enough to sit at home, weaving and spinning; but who can expect
a splendid offspring--the appropriate mission and duty of free Spartan
women toward their country--from mothers brought up in such
occupations?" But though, like the Egyptian women, and indeed in advance
of them, the Spartan women were treated with, for the times, a marked
degree of attention and respect, still, even in Sparta, there were laws
in force by which women suffered grievous injustice. With all the
apparent freedom accorded to them, fathers claimed and exercised the
right of disposing of their daughters in marriage to suit their own
views or interests. Though free-born, a girl had no choice, if her
father willed it so, in the selection of her husband; and husbands
might, if they wished, dispose of their wives by will, at death, as they
would of any other piece of property. Though in a measure free, because
she was a woman, she was still a slave.

Among the other infringements of the rights of women, and one of the
most barbarous, common to the heathen, both ancient and modern, and to
the Mohammedans, is early betrothal. In fact, the system of betrothal
prevailed to a very great extent among the very earliest nations of
which history furnishes any account, the laws affecting it being only
slightly modified to suit the circumstances of the various tribes by