all Pallas-Athena,--city-warder of Athens,--who are they all
but idealizations of that peculiar genius which wife, mother, and
daughter show forth every day in their homes? An Athenian never
allows his wife to visit the Agora. She cannot indeed go outside
the house without his express permission, and only then attended by
one or two serving maids; public opinion will likewise frown upon
the man who allowed his wife to appear in public too freely[*];
nevertheless there are compensations. Within her home the Athenian
woman is within her kingdom. Her husband will respect her, because
he will respect himself. Brutal and harsh he may possibly be, but
that is because he is also brutal and harsh in his outside dealings.
In extreme cases an outraged wife can sue for divorce before the
archon. And very probably in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
the Athenian woman is contented with her lot: partly because she
knows of nothing better; partly because she has nothing concrete
whereof to complain.

[*]Hypereides, the orator, says, "The woman who goes out of her
own home ought to be of such an age that when men meet her, the
question is not 'Who is her husband?' but 'Whose mother is she?'"
Pericles, in the great funeral oration put in his mouth by Thucydides,
says that the best women are those who are talked of for good or
ill the very least.

Doubtless it is because an Athenian house is a "little oasis
of domesticity," tenderly guarded from all insult,--a miniature
world whose joys and sorrows are not to be shared by the outer
universe,--that the Athenian treats the private affairs of his
family as something seldom to be shared, even with an intimate
friend. Of individual women we hear and see little in Athens, but