But ah! the choice what heart can doubt,

Of tents with love or thrones without?

CHAPTER III.
CONDITION OF UNMARRIED WOMEN.—LOVE.

The condition of an Athenian lady it is far more important and, in proportion, more difficult to describe. Extremely erroneous impressions appear to exist on the subject, several writers of eminence having adopted the theory that they lived in total seclusion, and were little less ignorant and degraded than Oriental women are commonly supposed to be. My own opinion is somewhat different. After very patiently investigating the matter, the conclusions at which I have arrived are as follow:—

In delineating a picture of this kind, positive testimonies are unquestionably required; but I appeal to the impartial reader, whether very great, I had almost said the greatest weight, should not, after all, be attributed to that conviction which grows up, gradually and silently, in the mind, during a long and habitual intercourse with the subject. In this way, new authorities are formed, for to have examined minutely and attentively what others have written, to have weighed authorities and scrupulously sifted their several pretensions, may be allowed to entitle a man, if anything can, to express an opinion of his own.

The notion appears to prevail extensively, even among writers not otherwise ill-informed, that women occupied, among the Ionians generally, and more especially among the Athenians, a very mean position, were neglected and despised, and, consequently, exerted little or no influence on manners, morals, literature, or public affairs. With what design this error has been propagated it is not difficult to comprehend. But to pervert history for party purposes is, after all, an useless undertaking, since the facts always remain, and it is never too late to rescue truth from the fangs of sophistry.

That the women of Athens were in the condition for which nature designed them, I will not affirm; a little more converse with the world might have improved their understandings, they might have been rendered more pleasing companions; but what they gained as social, they would probably have lost as domestic beings. No woman was ever rendered better as a wife or as a mother by that indiscriminate enjoyment of society, which, it is supposed, the gentlewomen of Athens lost so much by being deprived of.

To form, however, a correct conception of their station, and the happiness within their reach, we must take into consideration several circumstances peculiar to ancient society. In those times something very different was understood by the word education from the meaning now attached to it. It signified rather the disciplining of the mind to certain habits than the imparting of different kinds of knowledge. It was the culture of the intellectual powers, and the sowing of the seed, rather than the transplanting of notions, half-grown, from one mind to another. More care was bestowed on the building up, than on the furnishing, of the mind. There was by far less acquisition, less accomplishment than in modern times; but the faculties were more surely impregnated, quickened sooner, and ripened into more vigorous maturity. Hence, among the ancients, there were few dreamers, either men or women. Exquisitely alive to all the peculiarities of their situation, they were, in the best sense of the word, a poetical people, gifted, indeed, with imagination, but possessing, too, the power to rein it in, to shape its course, and, on most occasions, to render it subservient to the dictates of judgment.

Of the management of infancy I have already spoken. At the age of seven the sexes were separated, the girls still remaining in the nursery, while governors, kept expressly for the purpose, conducted the boys to the public schools.[[1140]] Too little is known of the material circumstances attending the mental and bodily training of the girls, or at what age they were taught to read and write. Much, however, in those ages was communicated orally. Their mothers imparted to them whatever notions they possessed of religion, performed in their presence several sacrifices and other pious rites, and gradually prepared them for officiating in their turn at their country’s altars.[[1141]] In a certain sense, therefore, every Athenian woman was a priestess, and though their piety was imperfect and their faith corrupt, it will still be admitted that important benefits must have been derived from imbuing the youthful mind with some principles of religion.