Euripides is even more bitter in his "Medea":--


Surely of creatures that have life and wit,
We women are of all things wretchedest,
Who first must needs, as buys the highest bidder,
Thus buy a husband, and our body's master.[*/


[*]Way's translation.


29. Athenian Marriage Rites.--However, thus runs public custom.
At about fifteen the girl must leave her mother's fostering care
and enter the house of the stranger. The wedding is, of course,
a great ceremony; and here, if nowhere else, Athenian women can
surely prepare, flutter, and ordain to their heart's content. After
the somewhat stiff and formal betrothal before witnesses (necessary
to give legal effect to the marriage), the actual wedding will
probably take place,--perhaps in a few days, perhaps with a longer
wait till the favorite marriage month Gamelion [January].[*] Then
on a lucky night of the full moon the bride, having, no doubt
tearfully, dedicated to Artemis her childish toys, will be decked
in her finest and will come down, all veiled, into her father's
torchlit aula, swarming now with guests. Here will be at last
that strange master of her fate, the bridegroom and his best man
(paranymphos). Her father will offer sacrifice (probably a lamb),
and after the sacrifice everybody will feast on the flesh of the
victim; and also share a large flat cake of pounded sesame seeds