Mode of contracting marriage.
Indeed it is to be remembered all along, that we are speaking of a state, rather than an act. We know nothing of a ceremonial of Homeric marriage beyond the exchange of gifts and the celebration of festivities in connection with the domicile, neither of which could ordinarily have place in the case of a captive while continuing such. She would grow into a wife in virtue of intention on the part of her lord, confirmed by habit, and sealed by a full recognition when the circumstances, that would alone admit of it, should have arrived.
The concubinage of the Greek chiefs, practised as it was during a long absence from home, bears an entirely different domestic and social character from that of Priam. It clearly constitutes, especially if the connections were single, the mildest and least licentious of all the forms in which the obligations of the marriage tie could be relaxed.
The presence of a concubine within the precinct of the family seems to have been differently viewed by the Greeks; for here, and here only, do we find the disparaging word παλλακὶς (whence the Latin pellex) applied to a person in that position. The two cases of it are as follows. In one of them Ulysses feigns a story of his having been a son of the Cretan Castor, born of a παλλακὶς, but (which he mentions as a departure from the general rule) regarded by his father as much as were his legitimate children[951]. The other is the instance of Phœnix in the Ninth Iliad. Amyntor his father had an intended or actual concubine; and, bestowing his affections on her, slighted the mother of his child. She, in resentment or self-defence, entreated her son Phœnix to cross or anticipate his father[952], and win the woman to his own embraces[953]. He complied; and thus drew down upon himself the dire wrath and curses of his father, which kindled his own anger in return; but he restrained himself from the act of parricide, and became a fugitive instead. This legend is somewhat obscure; but it appears to indicate plainly that concubinage was not a recognised institution among the Greeks, as it seems to have been among the Trojans.
So again, when Laertes had purchased Euryclea[954], we are told that he never attempted to make her his concubine, anticipating the resentment of his wife. It is plain, therefore, that this would have been an admitted offence on his part; and accordingly, that concubinage was contrary to the ideas of Greece respecting conjugal obligation.
Dignity of conjugal manners.
Within the precinct of the Greek marriages, which was secured and fenced in the manner we have seen, there prevailed that tenderness, freedom, and elevation of manners, which was the natural offspring of a system in the main so sound and strict. The general tone of the relations of husband and wife in the Homeric poems is thoroughly natural; it is full of dignity and warmth; a sort of noble deference, reciprocally adjusted according to the position of the giver and the receiver, prevails on either side. I will venture to add, it is full also of delicacy, though we must be content to distinguish, in considering this point, between what is essential and what is conventional, and must make some allowance for the directness and simplicity of expression that characterized an artless age[955].
With this delicacy was combined a not less remarkable freedom in the Greek manners with respect to women. We find Penelope appearing in her palace at will, on all ordinary occasions, before the Suitors; although, on the other hand, no woman would be present where any thing like license was to be exhibited, as we may judge from the case of the lay of Demodocus in the Eighth Odyssey. The general freedom of woman is however most fully exhibited in the case of Nausicaa. She goes forth into the country with her maidens unattended. When Ulysses appears there is no fear of him as a man, or even as a stranger, but only from his condition at the moment. This difficulty she surmounts with a dignity which she could not have possessed by virtue of her personal character only, nor except in a case where great liberty was habitually and traditionally enjoyed by women.
Her arrangement of the manner in which he is to enter the city apart from her, and her regard in this matter to opinion, both rest upon the same presumption of her freedom from petty control, as does her playful demand upon Ulysses for ζωάγρια, or salvage.