The Truth About Woman

The debased position of the Athenian citizen woman becomes abundantly clear when we find that ideal love and free relationship between the sexes were possible only with the hetairæ. Limitation of space forbids my giving any adequate details of these stranger-women, who were the beloved companions of the Athenian men. Prohibited from legal marriage by law, these women were in all other respects free; their relations with men, either temporary or permanent, were openly entered into and treated with respect. For the Greeks the hetaira was in no sense a prostitute. The name meant friend and companion. The women to whom the name was applied held an honourable and independent position, one, indeed, of much truer honour than that of the wife.

These facts may well give us pause. It was not the women who were the legal wives, safeguarded to ensure their chastity, restricted to their physical function of procreation, but the hetairæ, says Donaldson, "who exhibited what was best and noblest in woman's nature." Xenophon's ideal wife was a good housekeeper—like her of the Proverbs. Thucydides in the famous funeral oration which he puts in the mouth of Pericles, exhorts the wives of the slain warriors, whose memory is being commemorated, "to shape their lives in accordance with their natures," and then adds with unconscious irony, "Great is the glory of that woman who is least talked of by men, either in the way of praise or blame." Such were the barren honours granted to the legal wife. The hetairæ were the only educated women in Athens. It was only the free-companion who was a fit helpmate for Pericles, or capable of sustaining a conversation with Socrates. We know that Socrates visited Theodota[280] and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea, of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."[281] Thargalia, a Milesian stranger, gained a position of high political importance.[282] When Alcibiades had to flee for his life, it was a "companion" who went with him, and being present at his end performed the funeral rites over him.[283] Praxiteles carved a statue of Phryne in gold, and the work stood in a place of honour in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Apelles painted a portrait of Lais, and, for his skill as an artist, Alexander rewarded him with the gift of his favourite concubine; Pindar wrote odes to the hetairæ; Leontium, one of the order, sat at the feet of Epicurus to imbibe his philosophy.[284]

Among all these free women Aspasia of Miletus[285] stands forward as the most brilliant—the most remarkable. There is no doubt as to the intellectual distinction of the beloved companion of Pericles.[286] Her house became the resort of all the great men of Athens. Socrates, Phidias and Anaxagoras were all frequent visitors, and probably also Sophocles and Euripides. Plato, Xenophon and Æschines have all testified to the cultivated mind and influence of Aspasia. Æschines, in his dialogue entitled "Aspasia," puts into the mouth of that distinguished woman an incisive criticism of the mode of life traditional for her sex.[287]

The high status of the hetairæ is proved conclusively from the fact that the men who visited Aspasia brought their wives with them to her assemblies, that they might learn from her.[288] This breaking through the accepted conventions is the more significant if we consider the circumstances. Here, indeed, is your contrast—the free companion expounding the dignity of womanhood to the imprisoned mothers! Aspasia points out to the citizen women that it is not sufficient for a wife to be merely a mother and a good housekeeper; she urges them to cultivate their minds so that they may be equal in mental dignity with the men who love them. Aspasia may thus be regarded, as Havelock Ellis suggests, as "a pioneer in the assertion of woman's rights." "She showed that spirit of revolt and aspiration" which tends to mark "the intellectual and artistic activity of those who are unclassed or dubiously classed in the social hierarchy."

It is even probable that the movement to raise the status of the Athenian women, which seems to have taken place in the fourth century B.C., was led by Aspasia, and perhaps other members of the hetairæ. Ivo Bruns, whom Havelock Ellis quotes, believes that "the most certain information we possess concerning Aspasia bears a strong resemblance to the picture which Euripides and Aristophanes present to us of the leaders of the woman's movement."[289]

It was this movement of awakening which throws light on the justice which Plato accords to women. He may well have had Aspasia in his thoughts. Contact with her cultivated mind may have brought him to see that "the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both sexes," and therefore "all the pursuits of man are the pursuits of woman also, and in all of these woman is only a weaker man." Plato did not believe that women were equally gifted with men, only that all their powers were in their nature the same, and demanded a similar expression. He insists much more on woman's duties and responsibilities than on her rights; more on what the State loses by her restriction within the home than on any loss entailed thereby to herself. Such a fine understanding of the need of the State for women as the real ground for woman's emancipation, is the fruitful seed in this often quoted passage. May it not have arisen in Plato's mind from the contrast he saw between Aspasia and the free companions of men and the restricted and ignorant wives? A vivid picture would surely come to him of the force lost by this wastage of the mothers of Athens; a force which should have been utilised for the well-being of the State.

Sexual penalties for women are always found under a strict patriarchal régime. The white flower of chastity, when enforced upon one sex by the other sex, has its roots in the degradation of marriage. Men find a way of escape; women, bound in the coils, stay and waste. There is no escaping from the truth—wherever women are in subjection it is there that the idols of purity and chastity are set up for worship.

The fact that Greek poets and philosophers speak so often of an ideal relationship between the wife and the husband proves how greatly the failure of the accepted marriage was understood and depreciated by the noblest of the Athenians. The bonds of the patriarchal system must always tend to break down as civilisation advances, and men come to think and to understand the real needs and dependence of the sexes upon each other. Aristotle says that marriage besides the propagation of the human race, has another aim, namely, "community of the entire life." He describes marriage as "a species of friendship," one, moreover, which "is most in accordance with Nature, as husband and wife mutually supply what is lacking in the other." Here is the ideal marriage, the relationship between one woman and the one man that to-day we are striving to attain. To gain it the wife must become the free companion of her husband.

It is Euripides who voices the sorrows of women. He also foreshadows their coming triumph.

IV.—In Rome

Of the position of women in Rome in the pre-historic period we know almost nothing. We can accept that there was once a period of mother-rule.[291] Very little evidence, however, is forthcoming; still, what does exist points clearly to the view that woman's actions in the earliest times were entirely unfettered. Probably we may accept as near to reality the picture Virgil gives to us of Camilla fighting and dying on the field of battle.

In the ancient necropolis of Belmonte, dating from the iron age, Professor d'Allosso has recently discovered two very rich tombs of women warriors with war chariots over their remains. "The importance of this discovery is exceptional, as it shows that the existence of the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies, sung by the ancient poets, is not a poetic fiction, but an historic reality." Professor d'Allosso states that several details given by Virgil coincide with the details of these tombs.[292]

From the earliest notices we have of the Roman women we find them possessed of a definite character of remarkable strength. We often say this or that is a sign of some particular period or people; when nine times out of ten the thing we believe to be strange is in reality common to the progress of life. In Rome the position of woman would seem to have followed in orderly development that cyclic movement so beautifully defined by Havelock Ellis in the quotation I have placed at the beginning of the first section of this chapter.

The patriarchal rule was already strongly established when Roman history opens; it involved the same strict subordination of woman to the one function of child-bearing that we have found in the Athenian custom. The Roman marriage law developed from exactly the same beginning as did the Greek; the woman was the property of her father first and then of her husband. The marriage ceremony might be accomplished by one or two forms, but might also be made valid without any form at all. For in regard to a woman, as in regard to other property, possession or use continued for one year gave the right of ownership to the husband. This marriage without contract or ceremony was called usus.[293] The form confarreatio, or patrician marriage, was a solemn union performed by the high Pontiff of Jupiter in the presence of ten witnesses, in which the essential act was the eating together by both the bride and bridegroom of a cake made of flour, water and salt.[294] The religious ceremony was in no way essential to the marriage. The second and most common form, was called coemptio, or purchase, and was really a formal sale between the father or guardian of the bride and the future husband.[295] Both these forms transferred the woman from the potestas (power) of her father into the manus (hand) of her husband to whom she became as a daughter, having no rights except through him, and no duties except to him. The husband even held the right of life and death over the woman and her children. It depended on his will whether a baby girl were reared or cast out to die—and the latter alternative was no doubt often chosen. As is usual under such conditions, the right of divorce was allowed to the husband and forbidden to the wife. "If you catch your wife," was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, "in an act of infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if she were to catch you she would not venture to touch you with a finger, and, indeed, she has no right." It is true that divorce was not frequent.[296] Monogamy was strictly enforced. At no period of Roman history are there any traces of polygamy or concubinage.[297] But such strictness of the moral code seems to have been barren in its benefit to women. The terrible right of manus was vested in the husband and gave him complete power of correction over the wife. In grave cases the family tribunal had to be consulted. "Slaves and women," says Mommsen, "were not reckoned as being properly members of the community," and for this reason any criminal act committed by them was judged not openly by the State, but by the male members of the woman's family. The legal right of the husband to beat his wife was openly recognised. Thus Egnatius was praised when, surprising his wife in the act of tasting wine,[298] he beat her to death. And St. Monica consoles certain wives, whose faces bore the mark of marital brutality, by saying to them: "Take care to control your tongues.... It is the duty of servants to obey their masters ... you have made a contract of servitude."[299] Such was the marriage law in the early days of Rome's history.

Now it followed almost necessarily that under such arbitrary regulations of the sexual relationship some way of escape should be sought. We have seen how the Athenian husbands found relief from the restrictions of legal marriage with the free hetairæ. But in Rome the development of the freedom of love, with the corresponding advancement of the position of woman, followed a different course. The stranger-woman never attained a prominent place in Roman society. It is the citizen-women alone who are conspicuous in history. Here, relief was gained for the Roman wives as well as for the husbands, by what we may call a clever escape from marriage under the right of the husband's manus. This is so important that I must ask the reader deeply to consider it. The ideal of equality and fellowship between women and men in marriage can be realised only among a people who are sufficiently civilised to understand the necessity for the development and modification of legal restrictions that have become outworn and useless. Wherever the laws relating to marriage and divorce are arbitrary and unchanging there woman, as the weaker partner, will be found to remain in servitude. It can never be through the strengthening of moral prohibitions, but only by their modification to suit the growing needs of society that freedom will come to women.

The history of the development of marriage in Rome illustrates this very forcibly. Even in the days of the Twelve Tables a wholly different and free union had begun to take the place of the legally recognised marriage forms. It was developed from the early marriage by usus. We have seen that this marriage depended on the cohabitation of the man and the woman continued for one year, which gave the right of ownership to the husband in exactly the same way as possession for a year gave the right over others' property. But in Rome, if the enjoyment of property was broken for any period during the year, no title to it arose out of the usufruct. This idea was cleverly applied to marriage by usus. The wife by passing three nights in the year out of the conjugal domicile broke the manus of the husband and did not become his property.

When, or how, it became a custom to convert this breach of cohabitation into a system and establish a form of marriage, which entirely freed the wife from the manus of the husband, we do not know. What is certain is that this new form of free marriage by consent rapidly replaced the older forms of the coemptio, and even the solemn confarreatio of the patricians.

It will be readily seen that this expansion of marriage produced a revolution in the position of woman. The bride now remained a member of her own family, and though nominally under the control of her father or guardian, she was for all purposes practically free, having complete control over her own property, and was, in fact, her own mistress.

The law of divorce evolved rapidly, and the changes were wholly in favour of women. Marriage was now a private contract, of which the basis was consent; and, being a contract, it could be dissolved for any reason, with no shame attached to the dissolution, provided it was carried out with the due legal form, in the presence of competent witnesses. Both parties had equal liberty of divorce, only with certain pecuniary disadvantages, connected with the forfeiting of the wife's dowry, for the husband whose fault led to the divorce.[300] It was expressly stated that the husband had no right to demand fidelity from his wife unless he practised the same himself. "Such a system," says Havelock Ellis, "is obviously more in harmony with modern civilised feeling than any system that has ever been set up in Christendom."[301]

Monogamy remained imperative. The husband was bound to support the wife adequately, to consult her interests and to avenge any insult inflicted upon her, and it is expressly stated by the jurist Gaius that the wife might bring an action for damages against her husband for ill-treatment.[302] The woman retained complete control of her dowry and personal property. A Roman jurist lays it down that it is a good thing that women should be dowered, as it is desirable they should replenish the State with children. Another instance of the constant solicitude of the Roman law to protect the wife is seen in the fact that even if a wife stole from her husband, no criminal action could be brought against her. All crimes against women were punished with a heavy hand much more severely than in modern times.

Women gained increasingly greater liberty until at last they obtained complete freedom. This fact is stated by Havelock Ellis, whose remarks on this point I will quote.

Hobhouse gives the same estimate as to the high status of women.

It is necessary to note that this freedom of the Roman woman was prior to the introduction of Christianity, and that under its influence their position began to suffer.[305] I cannot follow this question, and can only say how entirely mistaken is the belief that the Jewish religion, with its barbaric view of the relationship between the sexes, was beneficial to the liberty of women.

The Roman matrons had now gained complete freedom in the domestic relationship, and were permitted a wide field for the exercise of their activities. They were the rulers of the household; they dined with their husbands, attended the public feasts, and were admitted to the aristocratic clubs, such as the Gerousia is supposed to have been. We find from inscriptions that women had the privilege of forming associations and of electing women presidents. One of these bore the title of Sodalitas Pudicitiæ Servandræ, or "Society for Promoting Purity of Life." At Lanuvium there was a society known as the "Senate of Women." There was an interesting and singular woman's society existing in Rome, with a meeting-place on the Quirinal, called Conventus Matronarum, or "Convention of Mothers of Families." This seems to have been a self-elected parliament of women for the purpose of settling questions of etiquette. It cannot be said that the accounts that we have of this assembly are at all edifying, but its existence shows the freedom permitted to women, and points to the important fact that they were accustomed to combine with one another to settle their own affairs. The Emperor Heliogabalus took this self-constituted Parliament in hand and gave it legal powers.[306]

The Roman women managed their own property; many women possessed great wealth: at times they lent money to their husbands, at more than shrewd interest. It appears to have been recognised that all women were competent in business affairs, and, therefore, the wife was in all cases permitted to assume complete charge of the children's property during their minority, and to enjoy the usufruct. We have instances in which this capacity for affairs is dwelt on, as when Agricola, the general in command in Britain, shows such confidence in his wife as a business woman that he makes her co-heir with his daughter and the Emperor Domitian. Women were allowed to plead for themselves in the courts of law. The satirists, like Juvenal, declare that there were hardly any cases in which a woman would not bring a suit.

There are many other examples which might be brought forward to show the public entry of women into the affairs of the State. There would seem to have been no limits set to their actions; and, moreover, they acted in their own right independently of men. On one occasion, when the women of the city rose in a body against an unfair taxation, they found a successful leader in Hortensia, the daughter of the famous orator Hortensus, who is said to have argued their case before the Triumvirs with all her father's eloquence. We find the wives of generals in camp with their husbands. The graffitti found at Pompeii give several instances of election addresses signed by women, recommending candidates to the notice of the electors. We find, too, in the municipal inscriptions that the women in different municipalities formed themselves into small societies with semi-political objects, such as the support of some candidate, the rewards that should be made to a local magistrate, or how best funds might be collected to raise monuments or statues.

It is specially interesting to find how fine a use many of the Roman women made of their wealth and opportunities. They frequently bestowed public buildings and porticoes on the communities among which they lived; they erected public baths and gymnasia, adorned temples, and put up statues. Their generosity took other forms. In Asia Minor we find several instances of women distributing large sums of money among each citizen within her own district. Women presided over the public games and over the great religious festivals. When formally appointed to this position, they paid the expenses incurred in these displays. In the provinces they sometimes held high municipal offices. Ira Flavia, an important Roman settlement in Northern Spain, for instance, was ruled by a Roman matron, Lupa by name.[307] The power of women was especially great in Asia Minor, where they received a most marked distinction, and were elected to the most important magistracies. Several women obtained the highest Priesthood of Asia, the greatest honour that could be paid to any one.[308]

There is one final point that has to be mentioned. We have seen how the liberty and power of the Roman women arose from, and may be said to have been dependent on, the substituting of a laxer form of marriage with complete equality and freedom of divorce. In other words it was the breaking down of the patriarchal system which placed women in a position of freedom equal in all respects with men. Now, it has been held by many that, owing to this freedom, the Roman women of the later period were given up to licence. There are always many people who are afraid of freedom, especially for women. But if our survey of these ancient and great civilisations of the past has taught us anything at all, it is this: the patriarchal subjection of women can never lead to progress. We must give up a timid adherence to past traditions. It is possible that the freeing of women's bonds may lead in some cases to the foolishness of licence. I do not know; but even this is better than the wastage of the mother-force in life. The child when first it tries to walk has many tumbles, yet we do not for this reason keep him in leading strings. We know he must learn to walk; how to do this he will find out by his many mistakes.

The opinion as to the licentiousness of the Roman woman rests mainly on the statements of two satirical writers, Juvenal and Tacitus. Great pains have been taken to refute the charges they make, and the old view is not now accepted. Dill,[309] who is quoted by Havelock Ellis, seems convinced that the movement of freedom for the Roman woman caused no deterioration of her character; "without being less virtuous or respected, she became far more accomplished and attractive; with fewer restraints, she had greater charm and influence, even in social affairs, and was more and more the equal of her husband."[310] Hobhouse and Donaldson[311] both support this opinion; the latter writer considers that "there was no degradation of morals in the Roman Empire." The licentiousness of pagan Rome was certainly not greater than the licentiousness of Christian Rome. Sir Henry Maine, in his valuable Ancient Law (whose chapter on this subject should be read by every woman), says, "The latest Roman law, so far as it is touched by the constitution of the Christian Emperors, bears some marks of reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults." This he attributes to the prevalent state of religious feeling that went to "fatal excesses" under the influence of its "passion for asceticism."

At the dissolution of the Roman Empire the enlightened Roman law remained as a precious legacy to Western civilisations. But, as Maine points out, its humane and civilising influence was injured by its fusion with the customs of the barbarians, and, in particular, by the Jewish marriage system. The legislature of Europe "absorbed much more of those laws concerning the position of women which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilisation. The law relating to married women was for the most part read by the light, not of Roman, but of Christian Canon Law, which in no one particular departs so widely from the enlightened spirit of the Roman jurisprudence than in the view it takes of the relations of the sexes in marriage." This was in part inevitable, Sir Henry Maine continues, "since no society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Roman law."

It is not possible for me to follow this question further. One thing is incontrovertibly certain, that woman's position and her freedom can best be judged by the equity of the moral code in its bearing on the two sexes. Wherever a different standard of moral conduct is set up for women from men there is something fundamentally wrong in the family relationship needing revolutionising. The sexual passions of men and women must be regulated, first in the interests of the social body, and next in the interests of the individual. It is the institution of marriage that secures the first end, and the remedy of divorce that secures the second. It is the great question for each civilisation to decide the position of the sexes in relation to these two necessary institutions. In Rome an unusually enlightened public feeling decided for the equality of woman with man in the whole conduct of sexual morality. The legist Ulpian expresses this view when he writes—"It seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity from his wife while he himself shows no example of it."[312] Such deep understanding of the unity of the sexes is assuredly the finest testimony to the high status of Roman women.

I have now reached the end of the inquiry set before us at the opening of this chapter. I am fully aware of the many omissions, probable misjudgments, and the inadequacy of this brief summary. We have covered a wide field. This was inevitable. I know that to understand really the position of woman in any country it is necessary to inquire into all the customs that have built up its civilisation, and to gain knowledge upon many points outside the special question of the sexual relationships. This I have not been able even to attempt to do. I have thrown out a few hints in passing—that is all. But the practical value of what we have found seems to me not inconsiderable. I have tried to avoid any forcing of the facts to fit in with a narrow and artificial view of my own opinions. To me the truth is plain. As we have examined the often-confused mass of evidence, as it throws light on the position of woman in these four great civilisations of antiquity, we find that, in spite of the apparent differences which separate their customs and habits in the sexual relationships, the evidence, when disentangled, all points in one and the same direction. In the face of the facts before us one truth cries out its message: "Woman must be free face to face with man." Has it not, indeed, become clear that a great part of the wisdom of the Egyptians and the wisdom of the Babylonians, as also of the Romans, and, in a different degree, of the Greeks, rested in this, they thought much of the mothers of the race. Do not the records of these old-world civilisations show us the dominant position of the mother in relation to the life of the race? In all great ages of humanity this has been accepted as a central and sacred fact. We learn thus, as we look backwards to those countries and those times when woman was free, by what laws, habits and customs the sons of mothers may live long and gladly in all regions of the earth. The use of history is not alone to sum up the varied experiences of the past, but to enlarge our vision of the present, and by reflections on that past to point a way to the future.

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