in the poets, probably the normal Athenian woman is neither degraded
nor miserable. If she is a girl of good ancestry and the usual
bringing up, she has never expected any other conditions than
these. She knows that her parents care for her and have tried to
secure for her a husband who will be her guardian and solace when
they are gone. Xenophon's ideal young husband, Ischomachus, says
he married his wife at the age of fifteen.[*] She had been "trained
to see and to hear as little as possible"; but her mother had taught
her to have a sound control of her appetite and of all kinds of
self-indulgence, to take wool and to make a dress of it, and to
manage the slave maids in their spinning tasks. She was at first
desperately afraid of her husband, and it was some time before he
had "tamed" her sufficiently to discuss their household problems
freely. Then Ischomachus made her join with him in a prayer to
the gods that "he might teach and she might learn all that could
conduce to their joint happiness"; after which they took admirable
counsel together, and her tactful and experienced husband (probably
more than twice her age) trained her into a model housewife.

[*]See Xenophon's "The Economist," VII ff. The more pertinent
passages are quoted in W. S. Davis's "Readings in Ancient History,"
Vol. I, pp. 265-271.


31. The Honor paid Womanhood in Athens.--Obviously from a young
woman with a limited intellectual horizon the Athenian gentleman
can expect no mental companionship; but it is impossible that he
can live in the world as a keenly intelligent being, and not come
to realize the enormous value of the "woman spirit" as
it affects all things good. Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, above