This change finds its expression as early as the Odyssey. Telemachus forbids Penelope's, his mother's, presence among the suitors. He, the son, orders his mother:
But come now, go to thy bower, and deal with such things as ye can;
With the sock and the loom be busy, and thine handmaids order and teach,
That they speed the work and the wearing; but for men is the word and the speech;
For all, but for me the chiefest, for here am I the might and the power.
Such was the doctrine already common in Greece at that time. It went even further. Woman, even if a widow, stands so completely under the rule of the nearest male relative, that she no longer has even the choice of a husband. The suitors, tired of long waiting, due to the cunning of Penelope, address themselves to Telemachus through the mouth of Antinous, saying:
But for thee, do we the suitors this answer to thee show,
That thou in thy soul may'st know it, and that all the folk may know,
Send thou thy mother away, and bid her a wedding to gain
With whomso her father willeth, of whomso her heart may be fain.