THE QUESTION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE COMEDY.
It is usual to assume that there was, during the earlier part of the fourth century, a strong agitation at Athens in favour of “women’s rights.” The social status of the Theban, as well as of the Lacedaemonian, women, had been brought, owing to political events, under the notice of even the most consistent Athenian, and advantage is supposed to have been taken of this fact by the advocates of female liberty at Athens, to endeavour to obtain for the women there some of those privileges which notoriously belonged to their neighbours. This being so, it will be interesting to consider in how far, if at all, this movement is reflected in the literature of the period.
The general treatment of women in the Middle Comedy being such as it is, there would be every reason to expect to find plays in which these efforts of women to obtain more general recognition from men, would be made the subject of more or less contemptuous ridicule. The fashion started by Aristophanes in the Ecclesiazusae must have been, one would have thought, too fascinating to be abandoned.
The fact, however, remains that, in such portions of the Middle Comedy as still exist, there is practically no trace of anything of the kind. There are, it is true, one or two titles of plays which seem at first sight suggestive, but further investigation generally reveals little. Thus the Gynaecocratia and the Gynaecomania of Amphis both seem aimed, not at the tyranny of women in general, but at the tyranny of wives.[370]
As for the Gynaecocratia of Alexis, all that can be gathered from the fragments is that it seems to have had certain features in common with the Scenas Catalambanusae of Aristophanes; as to its tone or tendency, there is no clue in the two short passages that remain.
The suggestion made above ([p. 228]) as to the meaning of the fragment of the Atalanta of Philetaerus is, of course, purely conjectural, and cannot, therefore, bear evidence either way.
And that is all. This almost entire absence from the Middle Comedy of plays dealing with the question of “women’s rights,” would seem to justify a certain hesitation in accepting the common view that this question was at the time a burning one. So general a silence on the point, in a literature which deals exhaustively with every other phase of contemporary life, seems not unreasonably to suggest that the extent and influence of the movement have been exaggerated, and that, as far as it existed at all, it was confined to a small body of enthusiasts, and was well-nigh without effect on the body of the nation at large.