When these symbols of her youth had passed from her keeping into that of the goddess, the maiden was dressed in beautiful raiment, crowned with a wreath and covered with the bridal veil for the marriage ceremony. This took place in the evening on a day when the moon was full, and when she was ready, the bride was led by her attendant maidens to the court where the bridegroom and her parents and the invited guests awaited her. The marriage took place in the court, a sacrifice was offered and a libation poured out to the gods, and then the marriage feast followed, at which cakes of sesame were always eaten. This was the only occasion on which women were allowed to be present at a feast, but through it all the bride remained closely veiled. When the feast was over, the bridal chariot was driven up to the door, and the bride took her seat in it beside her husband, her mother walked behind it bearing the marriage torch with which the fire on the hearth of her new home would be lighted, the guests surrounded it and with flute-playing and singing escorted the bride to her new home.
If the bridegroom lived in a distant place, the bridal procession broke up at the gates of the city, but if he lived in Athens, he and his bride were escorted to the door of his house, where they were met by his mother, and then, to the music of a marriage song, the bride was led into her new home.
Did the Athenian lady have no amusements or recreations? Did she leave all that was gay behind her when she became a wife? The Athenian lady seldom left the house, and never unless attended by a female slave. She had practically no society but that of her slaves. The peasant woman in the fields and the few women who sold in the market had the society of their friends, but such companionship was denied to the well-born lady. She saw no men, except those of her own family. If her husband dined at home alone, she shared his meal, but if he had guests she was unseen. From time to time she took part in the great religious festivals and processions, and occasionally she was permitted to be present in the theatre when a tragedy was performed, but she was never permitted to see a comedy for the wit and humour were often coarse and were considered unfitting for her ears.
In many ways it was a strange life that the Athenian lady lived, one that seems as if it were in contradiction to all that the Athenians held of the highest importance, for the
Athenian lady lived in the house among a people that lived out of doors. Among a people who gave great importance to physical training she was advised to take her exercise in bedmaking. At a time when the human spirit was at its freest she was enclosed on all sides. Art and thought and letters were reaching the highest development they were ever to know, but for her they hardly existed.
But whatever was the actual life of the Athenian lady, the Athenian ideal of womanhood was very high. In the wondrous temple that stood high above the city, looking down upon it and guarding it, was the figure that symbolized to the Athenians all that was good and beautiful and true, and it was the figure of a woman. It was always the figure of a woman that represented Victory, and nearly all the great Greek dramas deal with the fate of a woman, who was generally the wife or daughter of a King. The Sacred Mysteries of Eleusis, mysteries of such deep meaning that it was said that "partakers in them had better hopes concerning death and all eternity," centred round the story of the love and sorrow of a woman. A race that could produce such great figures as these must have thought nobly of womanhood.[[7]]
And so, in spite of her subordinate position in the background, the Athenian woman was of real influence in Athens. She reigned supreme in the household, and as her sons grew up, they recognized in her those qualities which every Greek and especially the Athenian, was taught to value so highly: that quiet courage which by its very steadfastness overcomes all the little anxieties and annoyances of daily life; and that self-control and self-mastery which, putting self in the background, sets free the individual for service to others. The Athenian ideal of service was that the man should give it wholly to the state, and the woman wholly to her home, but narrow as was her horizon, limited as were her opportunities, the Athenian woman exercised an influence in Athens, that helped to strengthen and preserve some of the noblest Athenian qualities.
[[1]] Aristophanes: The Wasps, translated by B. B. Rogers. (By permission of Messrs. G. Bell and Sons.)
[[2]] Xenophon: The Economist.
[[3]] Ibid.