The Athenian laws permitted citizens to divorce their wives on very trivial pretences; but compelled them, at the same time, to give in a memorial to the archons, stating the grounds on which the divorce was desired. A citizen might put away his wife, without any particular disgrace being attached to either the husband or the wife; and when the divorce was by mutual consent, the parties were at liberty to contract elsewhere. He who divorced his wife, was compelled to restore her dowry, though he was allowed to pay it by instalments: sometimes it was paid as alimony, nine oboli each month.
For a very flagrant offence, a wife, by the Athenian laws, might divorce her husband: if the men divorced, they were said ἀποπέμπειν, or ἀπολεύειν, to send away their wives: but if the women divorced, they were said ἀπολείπειν, to quit their husbands. (Vide Potter’s Arch. Græc., Vol. II. B. IV. C. 12.)
Terence artfully makes Simo use the word discessio instead of divortium, or discidium, or repudium: which means the worst kind of divorce. Discessio, among the Romans, was nearly the same as a separation among us: by separation, I mean what our lawyers call divorce a mensa et thoro; which does not dissolve the marriage; and which they place in opposition to divorce a vinculo matrimonii; which is a total divorce. In the earlier ages of the Roman Republic, the wife had no option of divorcing her husband: but it was afterwards allowed, as we see in Martial.
“Mense novo Jani veterem, Proculeia, maritum
Deseris, atque jubes res sibi habere suas.
Quid, rogo, quid factum est? subiti quæ causa doloris?”
B. 10. Epigr. 39.
[NOTE 154ᴬ].
Why is not the bride brought? it grows late.
An Athenian bride was conveyed to her bridegroom’s house in the evening by torchlight, attended by her friends: vide Notes [116], [117], [118], [119]. Various singular customs prevailed among the Athenians at their marriages: when the bride entered her new habitation, quantities of sweetmeats were poured over her person: she and her husband also ate quinces, and the priests who officiated at marriages (vide St. Basil, Hom. 7, Hexame.) first made a repast on grasshoppers, (τέττιγες, cicadæ,) which were in high esteem among the Athenians, who wore golden images of this insect in their hair, and, on that account, were called τέττιγες. Grasshoppers were thought to have originally sprung from the earth; and, for that reason, were chosen as the symbol of the Athenians, who pretended to the same origin.