Fig. 77.
corresponding modifications, in order to develop and strengthen their bodies. Of course, they had their own special schools for this purpose, distinct from those of the boys, where they were instructed in running, jumping, wrestling, throwing the spear and quoit, as well as in several exercises in running and springing, which were partly of a military character, partly allied with dancing. For this purpose they wore a special dress; Fig. [77] shows us a female racer from Elis. The statue which is in the Vatican is in the ancient style, and represents a robust girl clad in a short chiton, with a girdle descending only a little way below the hips, and leaving the right breast exposed. This special dress used for gymnastic exercises must not, however, be confused with that in which the Spartan ladies usually appeared, though this, too, as already stated (page 39), differed from the ordinary dress of Greek girls. In spite, however, of this dress, and of the fact that youths and maidens, who in the Ionic states scarcely ever met each other except at religious festivals, were brought into frequent contact at Sparta, especially at public contests, games, choruses, etc., the Spartan women bore an unstained reputation. The system of physical exercises produced healthy women, strongly built, with blooming complexions; and it also implanted and developed in them the manly and determined spirit for which the Laconian women and mothers were distinguished. Yet, even at Sparta, there was no question of intellectual training for the girls; and, indeed, as we have already seen, even in the case of the boys, it was regarded as far less important than physical education.
CHAPTER IV.
MARRIAGE AND WOMEN.
Love amongst the Greeks—Engagements—Marriage Rites and Ceremonies—The Laconian Custom—Marriage in the Doric States—The Mode of Life of the Athenian Women—Their Personal Habits—The Hetaerae.
The boyhood of the young Athenian was occupied by school and play; his youth was spent in gymnastic exercises, and sometimes also in scientific studies and military labours. When he attained his majority as a citizen, he acquired the right of exercising his political and civic duties, taking part in popular assemblies and other public gatherings; but apparently the young people did not make much use of these privileges when they first entered on their political majority. Besides these occupations there were many others to draw them away from serious duties: pleasant intercourse with companions, drinking bouts, and also the charms of pretty hetaerae, who were easily won to regard with favour anyone possessing a tolerably well-filled purse. And this was all the compensation they had for exclusion from the society of the daughters of citizens; for, with the exception of the hetaerae, and the flute and cithara players who performed at the banquets, women played no part in social intercourse at Athens. There were but few occasions when the girls left the close confinement of the women’s apartments for any kind of publicity, and this custom, which resembled the Oriental, and was probably introduced by the Ionic Greeks from Asia Minor, while the Doric practice was very different, caused one of the greatest wants of Attic life. This is brought forcibly before us in the comedies of the fourth century, the so-called “New Attic Comedy,” in which the basis was usually a love story, which our modern ideas would regard as purely sensual, or even immoral; while love, in the best sense of the word, is never represented. We must not, on this account, suppose that the Greeks were entirely unacquainted with that kind of affection which is based on real inclination, similarity of mind, and recognition of intellectual virtues; in fact, the contrast often emphasised by poets and artists between Aphrodite Urania, as the type of heavenly intellectual love, and Aphrodite Pandemos, as that of sensuous love, must convince us of the contrary; while Greek literature also supplies many examples of pure love in the truest sense of the word, though a strong admixture of the sensuous element was natural, even here, to a passionate southern race.
It was, however, quite unusual for such attachment to begin before marriage, since opportunities for this were wanting. But often, in spite of the conventional mode by which marriages were arranged, this attachment was developed after marriage, and we must not fall into the mistake of judging married life in Greece, or especially at Athens, only from the greatly exaggerated descriptions of Aristophanes, or the sarcastic tirades of misogynists like Euripides. The great majority of the women were not so superficial or so quarrelsome as these poets have represented them, nor the young men, as a rule, so vicious or hostile to marriage as they are depicted in the majority of the New Attic Comedies.
It is true enough, of course, that marriage was usually a matter of contract between the fathers or guardians of the young pair, and not the consequence of affection between the youth and maiden; and this it is which we see in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, who copied Greek originals. Very often the fathers agreed to a marriage between their children; sometimes the arrangements were made by a woman (προμνηστρία) acquainted with the circumstances of the citizens’ families, who made a kind of business of arranging marriages. An important point was equality of fortune; of course, both parties had to be full citizens, but degrees of relationship do not seem to have been any hindrance. The girl’s consent was not asked at all; it was a matter of course that she should accept the husband chosen by her parents, and, as she had no other male acquaintances, objections can very seldom have been made. Generally she was only acquainted with the husband destined for her by seeing him hastily on her walks or at festivals. The destined bridegroom is more likely to have made objections if the appointed bride did not please him; yet here, too, as a rule, the father could have his way, since his son was entirely in his power, unless it so happened that he earned his own living by any profession, which was seldom the case among the better classes. The fathers or guardians then concluded the contract of engagement, in which the bride’s dowry was fixed and special arrangements made for community of goods, return of the dowry in case of a divorce, etc. The Homeric custom, by which it was the bridegroom who brought gifts in order to win a bride, while the father gave his daughter to the one who promised the richest bridal presents, had early fallen into disuse, and probably even in the heroic period it was only customary among noble families. In the historic period a dowry was regarded as an indispensable basis for marriage: so much so that daughters or sisters of poor citizens were often endowed at the expense of generous friends, or poor orphan girls by their guardians; sometimes the State even gave a dowry to the daughters of citizens who had deserved well of their country. The engagement itself was, as a rule, a legal act, which followed the private agreement between the fathers, and was considered an essential preliminary to a legal marriage; it was not, however, a general custom to celebrate this act in a social manner by a banquet. As is usual in southern countries, the girls married very young, sometimes even at the age of fifteen, or earlier; but the period between their sixteenth and twentieth years was probably the usual one for marriage. There seems to have been no distinct limit of age for men, but probably the years between twenty and thirty were those in which most of them entered the married state. We do not know how long a period usually elapsed between the engagement and the marriage; probably there was no definite custom, but we know that very often the wedding immediately followed the engagement. We are likewise unable to say whether, in the case of a long engagement, the bride and bridegroom had any opportunities for meeting each other. The actual wedding usually took place in the winter, and a favourite time was the month Gamelion (the end of January and beginning of February), which hence received its name. Certain days regarded as auspicious were generally chosen, and the waning moon was specially avoided. It is curious, when we compare our own and the Roman customs, to note that, though the wedding received a religious character by sacrifices and other solemn ceremonies, it was not of itself regarded as a religious or legal act. The legality of the marriage depended on the engagement, and the religious consecration was not given by a priest (who took no part, as a rule, in the wedding ceremony), but by the marriage gods, who were invoked by prayer and sacrifice, more especially Zeus and Hera, Apollo, Artemis, and Peitho, the goddess of persuasion. We must now endeavour to form an idea of an Athenian wedding ceremony, as described by Greek writers.
Among the ceremonies bearing a religious character which preceded the wedding, an important part was played by the bath. Both bride and bridegroom took a bath either on the morning of the wedding-day or the day before, for which the water was brought from a river or from some spring regarded as specially sacred, as at Athens the spring Callirhoe (or Enneacrunos), at Thebes the Ismenus; and this water had to be fetched by a boy who was some near relation; sometimes, however, we hear of maidens sent to fetch it. The bride also offered libations and gifts—as, for instance, her toys, locks of hair, and the like—to one of the marriage goddesses. More important was the sacrifice generally celebrated on the wedding-day, but we know few details about the mode of its performance. It was offered to the marriage deities mentioned above, either to all collectively or singly; the families of both bridegroom and bride took part in the ceremony. We do not know of any special directions as to the animals to be sacrificed; it appears to have been the custom to remove the gall of the victim, and not burn it with the rest of the inner parts, and this was supposed to indicate symbolically that all bitterness must be absent from marriage.