The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

by Eliza Burt Gamble

Although under Draco, the predecessor of Solon, the political degradation of the citizens of Greece may be said to have reached its height, and although the uprising of the masses against the usurpation of power by the few marks an era in the history of the Greeks, it was not until the dawn of the Periclean age that women had gained sufficient freedom to enable them to exercise any direct influence on thought, or on the principles underlying human conduct.

We must bear in mind the fact that for five or six centuries the inferiority of women had been systematically and religiously taught. Ever since the rule of Cecrops, at which time doubtless the manner of reckoning descent began to be changed from the female to the male line, woman’s influence in Athens had gradually declined. The religio-physiological doctrine that in the office of reproduction the mother plays only an insignificant part had not only been proclaimed by Apollo but had been sanctioned also by Athene. It is recorded of Cecrops that “he instituted marriage and established a new religion.”

Just here may be observed the key to the gradually declining position of the female element in the deity, and to the finally accepted dogma that the female is inferior to the male. Through the private ownership of land and the consequent dependency of women upon men, the way had been paved for this assumption—an assumption which had the effect to create in Ionian men the supreme and lofty contempt for women which is observed throughout their literature and laws. From the age of Solon to that of Pericles, the overwhelming degree of superiority assumed by Athenian men over women had uprooted in the former every vestige of restraint, at the same time that it had deprived them of the last trace of that respect for womanhood which under earlier and more natural conditions had been entertained.

It has been frequently remarked that women took little or no part in the intellectual development of Greece; that during the most rapid progress of Greek men, there was no corresponding improvement in the position occupied by Greek women.

From what is recorded relative to Athenian women from the time of Cecrops to that of Solon, one would scarcely expect to find them competing with men for the prizes of life. Later, however, that a considerable number of them did assert their independence, and that, defying the customs and traditions by which they were bound, did prove themselves the equals of men, may not be doubted.

There probably has never been a time since the dominion of man began when the more sensitive and better endowed among women have not secretly rebelled against the tyranny exercised over them, and, throughout the ages, whenever an opportunity has been offered, large numbers of these women, have never failed to make known their discontent. Greek women were no exception to this rule. Their first step toward liberty was to free themselves from the galling chain imposed upon them by marriage, a position in which, as has been shown, wives were simply household slaves, tools of their imperious and degenerate masters. Greek women, in the Periclean age, simply assumed the control of their persons and by so doing provoked the maledictions of future ages, ages in which sensualism still reigned supreme.

For reasons which have already been explained, the foremost women in Greece, and in fact all women who during the Periclean age were engaged in art, literature, philosophy, and statesmanship, belonged to the class known as the hetairai, a term which, through the excessive growth or sensuality and superstition, subsequently became a term of reproach. Whatever may have been the importance of the services rendered by these women to society, such services would have been ignored, or, if not altogether ignored, would have been reflected upon, or appropriated by, the opposite sex.

To say that the hetairai were free is equal to saying that they have been misunderstood, hence the calumnies which for more than two thousand years have been heaped upon them. That the hetairai of Greece in the Periclean age included a class of women who were the intellectual compeers of the ablest statesmen and philosophers is a fact which may not by those who have paid close attention to this subject be denied. That they taught rhetoric and elocution, that they lectured publicly and established schools of philosophy at the same time that they wielded a powerful influence on the state and on the drift of current thought are facts which mediæval scholasticism has not been able to conceal.

I think one may not investigate the various schools of philosophy which arose during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., without noting the peculiarly altruistic principles involved in them, and this, too, notwithstanding the fact that, hitherto, extreme selfishness or egoism had constituted the prevailing character observed in Athenian society.

According to the principles of the Cyrenaics, the virtuous man is not necessarily he who is in the possession of pleasure but he who is able to proceed rightly in quest of pleasure. “Virtue is the only possible and sane way to happiness.” The most eminent members of the Cyrenaics were Arete the daughter of Aristippus and her son Aristippus the younger, surnamed the mother-taught.[232] The fundamental doctrine of the Cyrenes seems to have been that right-living or virtue constitutes the only good. “The essence of virtue lies in self-control. Enjoyment sought as an end is evil.”