We have thus briefly sketched the indications of the prevalence of the Woman Question in Athens, as presented in the plays of Aristophanes. This writer furthermore affords us many ludicrous pictures of woman in private life, which indicate that the fair sex were not always as weak as men would have them. The chorus of the Thesmophoriazusæ resent the many ill things said of the race of women,--"that we are an utter evil to men, and that all evils spring from us, strifes, quarrels, seditions, painful grief, and war. Come, now, if we are an evil, why do you marry us, if indeed we are really an evil, and forbid any of us either to go out, or to be caught peeping out, but wish to guard the evil thing with so great diligence? And if the wife should go out any whither, and you then should discover her to be out of doors, you rage with madness, who ought to offer libations and rejoice, if indeed you really find the evil thing to be gone away from the house and do not find it at home. And if we sleep in other peoples' houses, when we play and when we are tired, everyone searches for this evil thing, going round about the beds. And if we peep out of a window, everyone seeks to get a sight of the evil thing. And if we retire again, being ashamed, so much the more does everyone desire to see the evil thing peep out again. So manifestly are we much better than you." As portrayed by Aristophanes, the women of his day manifestly knew how to assert their equality. Feminine foibles and weaknesses do not escape his satiric pen. Women are overfond of dress, and no brilliant or prudent action can be expected of them,
"Who sit deck'd out with flowers, and bearing robes
Of saffron hue, and richly border'd o'er
With loose Cimmerian vests and circling sandals."
Furthermore, they are fond of drink, and this vice is mercilessly satirized. The inexorable oath administered by Lysistrata to her comrades, in entering upon their crusade to bring about peace, is one which no Athenian woman would incur the penalty of breaking: "If I violate my pledge, may the cup be filled with water!"
Occasionally a man found he had married a wife who set aside his conjugal authority and ruled the household. Thus Strepsiades, the country gentleman of Aristophanes's Clouds, quarrelled with his luxurious, city-bred wife, of the aristocratic house of Megacles, over the naming of their son, which was the father's right, and, woman-like, she carried her point; and this son she brought up to despise his father's country ways and to squander his father's substance in horse racing.
Aristophanes was not the only comic poet who indulged in gibes at the female sex, for the object of comedy was to amuse, and the Athenian audience of men ever found delight in the portrayal of the weaknesses and foibles of the opposite sex. Even his predecessor Susarion, who was the first to compose comedy in verse, and is usually called the inventor of comedy, gave expression to the current abuse: "Hear, O ye people! Susarion says this, the son of Philinus, the Megarian, of Tripodiscus: women are an evil; and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house without evil; for to be married or not to be married is alike bad." It is unfortunate for our purpose that so little survives of the numberless plays of the Middle and New Comedy, especially the latter, for this comedy of manners presented a close and faithful picture of domestic life and would have been an almost inexhaustible mine of information on Attic life in general, full as it was of illustrations of the manners, feelings, prejudices, and ways of thinking of the Ancient Greeks.
The fragments preserved to us are sufficient, however, to give us glimpses of the manner in which woman was treated on the stage; and, while there was much harsh criticism, it is gratifying to note that her good qualities were at times recognized. Says the poet Antiphanes:
"What! when you court concealment, will you tell
The matter to a woman? Just as well