I know of nothing finer than this wide understanding of the ties of sex. It is an essential part of morality, as I understand it, that it accepts responsibility, not alone in the regular and permanent relationships between one man and one woman, but also in those that are temporary and are even considered base. Only in this way can the human passions be unified with love.

The freedom of the Egyptian marriage made this possible. Law, at least as we understand it, did not interfere with the domestic relationships; there was no one fixed rule that must be followed. Marriage was a matter of mutual agreement by contract. All that was required (and this was enforced by custom and by public opinion) was that the position of the woman and the children was made secure. Each party entered on the marriage without any constraint, and each party could cancel the contract and thereby the marriage. No legal judgment was required for divorce. It is a significant fact that in all the documents cancelling the marriage contracts that have come down to us, no mention is made of the reason which led to the annulling of the contract, only in one case it is suggested that "some evil daimon" may be at the bottom of it.[223]

Polygamy was allowed in Egypt, though, as in all polygamous countries, its practice was confined to the rich. This has been thought by some to exclude the idea of the woman's power in the family.[224] But such an opinion seems to me to arise from a want of understanding of the Egyptian conception of the sexual tie. Under polygamy each wife had a house, her proprietary rights and those of her children were established, the husband visiting her there as a privileged guest on equal footing.[225] This is very different from polygamy in a patriarchal society, and would carry with it no social dishonour to the woman. It would seem, too, in later Egyptian history that polygamy, though legal in theory, in practice died out, the fidelity of the husband, as we have seen, being claimed by the wife in the conditions of the marriage contract.[226]

That the Egyptians had a high ideal of the domestic relations—and had this, let it be remembered, more than four thousand years ago—is abundantly illustrated by their inscriptions. In one epitaph of the Hykos period, the speaker, who boasts a family of sixty children, says of himself, "I loved my father, I honoured my mother, my brothers and my sisters loved me."[227] The commonest formula, which continued in use as long as Egyptian civilisation survived, was one describing the deceased as "loving his father, reverencing his mother, and being beloved by his brothers," and there can be no doubt that this sentiment represented the maturest convictions of the Egyptians as to the sentiments necessary for the felicitous working of the family relationships.[228] It is, indeed, significant to find this reversal of the usual sentiments towards the father and the mother—the former to be loved and the latter to be reverenced. It would seem as if "they assumed that fathers would be sufficiently reverenced if they were loved, and mothers loved if they were honoured." How true here is the understanding of affection and of the sexes!

If we pause for a moment to seek the reason why the Egyptians had, as Herodotus so strikingly states, established in their domestic relationships laws and customs different from the rest of mankind—the answer is easy to find. The Egyptians were an agricultural and a conservative people. They were also a pacific race. They would seem not to have believed in that illusion of younger races—the glory of warfare. I have seen it stated that in battle they were known for the habit of running away. This may, of course, be thought to count against them as a people. It depends entirely on the point of view that is taken. But if, as I believe, the fighting activities belong to an early and truly primitive stage of social development, then the view would be very different. Races begin with the building up of society, then there follows the period of warfare—the patriarchal period which leads on to a later stage, much nearer in its working to the first—a final period, as Havelock Ellis says, "the stage of fruition." Woman's place and opportunity for the true expression of the powers that are hers belong to the first and last of these stages; in the middle stage she must tend to fall into a position of more or less complete dependence on the fighting male. Here is, I think, the explanation of the power and privilege of the Egyptian women. The Egyptians, due to their pacific and conservative temperament, seem to have escaped the patriarchal stage, and passed on from the first to final stage. Through the long centuries of their civilisation they devoted their energies to the building up and preserving of their social organisation. Thus, it may be, came about that solving of the problem of the sexes, which they among all races seem to have accomplished. The relationships of their family life and domestic administration were entirely civilised and humane.

Nowhere, except in Egypt, is so much stress laid upon the truth, that authority is sustained by affection. Their monuments and the inscriptions that have come down to us abundantly testify the value set upon affection: it is always the love of the husband for the wife, the wife for the husband, or the parent for the child, that is recorded. The frequency and detail with which such affections are described, prove the high estimation in which the purely domestic virtues were held, as forming the best and chief title of the dead to remembrance and honour. It is clear, moreover, that these affectionate relations between the members of a family are counted among the pleasures and joy of life. The inscriptions urge and warn the survivors to miss none of the joys of life, since the disembodied dead sleep in darkness, and this is the worst of their grief, "they know neither father nor mother, they do not awake to behold their brethren, their heart yearns no longer after wife and child."[229] There is a delightful inscription on the sepulchral tablet of the wife of a high priest of Memphis,[230] in which she urges the duty of happiness for her husband. It says—

Such a conception, with its clear idea of the right of happiness, stands as witness to the high ideal of love which regulated the Egyptian family relationships.

It is necessary to remember, in this connection, that the domestic ties of the Egyptians were firmly based on proprietary considerations. No surprise need be felt that this was so, when we recall the wise arrangements of the marriage contracts, whereby both parties of the union secured equal freedom and an equal share in the family property. The antagonism between ownership and affection which so frequently destroys domestic happiness must thus have been unknown. "There was no marriage without money or money's worth, but to marry for money, in the modern sense, was impossible where individual ownership was abolished by the act of marriage itself."[231]

This in itself explains the fact, proved by these inscriptions, that the Egyptian woman remained to the end of life, "the beloved of her husband and the mistress of the house." "Make glad her heart during the time that thou hast," was the traditional advice given to the husband. To this effect runs the precept of Petah Hotep[232]—

The maxims of Ani,[234] written six dynasties later, give the same advice with fuller detail—

Honour to the mother was strongly insisted on. The sage Kneusu-Hetep[235] thus counsels his son—

I would note in passing that in this passage we have a conclusive testimony to health and character of the Egyptian mother. The importance of this is undoubted, when we remember the active part taken by women in business and in social life. It is, I am sure, an entirely mistaken view to hold that motherhood is a cause of weakness to women. In a wisely ordered society this is not so. It is the withdrawal of one class of women from labour—the parasitic wives and daughters of the rich (which of these women could feed and carry her child for three years?), as the forcing of other women into work under intolerable conditions that injures motherhood. But on these questions I shall speak in the final part of my inquiry.

When I had written thus far in this chapter, I went from the reading-room of the British Museum, where all day I had been working, to spend a last quiet hour in the Egyptian Galleries. I knew one at least of these galleries well, but as a rule I had hurried through it, as so many of the reading-room students do, to reach the refreshment-room which is placed there. I found I had never really seen anything. This time it was different, for my thoughts were aflame with the life of this people, whose wonderful civilisation speaks in all these sculptured remains through the silence of the centuries. Some fresh thought came to me as I waited to look at first one statue and then another. I sought for those which represented women. There is a small statue in green basalt of Isis holding a figure of Osiris Un-nefer, her son.[236] The goddess is represented as much larger than the young god, who stands at her feet. The marriage of Isis with her brother Osiris did not blot out her independent position, her importance as a deity remained to the end greater than his. Think for a moment what this placing of the goddess, rather than the god, in the forefront of Egyptian worship signifies; very clearly it reflects the honour in which the sex to whom the supreme deity belongs was held. In the third Egyptian room is a seated statuette of Queen Teta-Khart, a wife of Aähmes I (1600 B.C.), whose title was "Royal Mother," and another figure of Queen Amenártas of the XXVth Dynasty 700 B.C.; near by is a beautiful head of the stone figure of a priestess.[237] There is something enigmatic and strangely seductive in the Egyptian faces; a joy and calmness which are implicit in freedom. And the impression is helped by the fixed attitudes, usually seated and always facing the spectator, and also by the great size of many of the figures; one seems to realise something of the simplicity and strength of the tireless enduring power of these women and men.

But I think what interested me most of all was the little difference manifested in the representations of the two sexes. The dress which each wears is very much the same; the attitudes are alike, and so often are the faces, even in the figures there seems no accentuation of the sexual characters. Often I did not know whether it was at a man or a woman, a god or a goddess, I was looking, until the title of the statue told me. How strange this seemed to me, and yet how significant of the beautiful equality of partnership between the woman and the man. It is in the statues which represent a husband and wife together, seated side by side, that this likeness is most evident. There are several of these domestic groups. One very interesting one is of early date, and belongs to the IVth Dynasty 3750 B.C.[238] It is in painted limestone, and shows the portrait figures of Ka-tep, "a royal kinsman" and priestly official, and his wife Hetep-Heres, "a royal kinswoman." The figures are small and of the same size; the faces are clearly portraits. The one, which I take to be the woman, though I am uncertain whether I am right, has her arm around the man, embracing him. There is another group[239] in white limestone of very fine work, portraits of a high official and his wife. The figures resemble each other closely, but that of the man is a little larger, showing his rank. The man holds the hand of the woman. This statue belongs to the XIXth Dynasty. On the right-hand side of the North Gallery is a second group of an earlier period.[240] The husband and wife are seated, and the figures are of the same size, showing that their rank was equal; their arms are intertwined, and between them, standing at their feet, is a small figure of their son. It was before this family group I waited longest: it pleased me by its completeness and its sincerity. Once more I should have had difficulty in identifying which figure was the father and which the mother, but the man wears a small beard. In all these statue groups there is this great resemblance between the sexes.

Were the sexes, then, really alike in Egypt? I do not know. Such a conception opens up biological considerations of the deepest significance. It is so difficult to be certain here. Is the great boundary line which divides the two halves of life, with the intimate woman's problems that depend upon it, to remain for ever fixed? In sex are we always to be faced with an irresolvable tangle of disharmonies? Again, I do not know. Yet, looking at these seated figures of the Egyptian husband and wife, I felt that the answer might be with them. Do they not seem to have solved that secret which we are so painful in our search of? The statues thus took on a kind of symbolic character, which eloquently spoke of a union of the woman and the man that in freedom had broken down the boundaries of sex, and, therefore, of life that was in harmony with love and joy. And the beautiful words of the Egyptian Song of the Harper came to my memory, and now I understood them—

II.—In Babylon

If we turn now to the very ancient civilisation of Babylon we shall find women in a position of honour similar in many ways to what we have seen already in Egypt: there are ever indications that the earliest customs may have gone beyond those of the Egyptians in exalting women. The most archaic texts in the primitive language are remarkable for the precedence given to the female sex in all formulas of address: "Goddess" and gods, women and men, are mentioned always in that order, which is in itself a decisive indication of the high status of women in this early period.[241]

There are other traces all pointing to the conclusion that in the civilisation of primitive Babylon mother-right was still very much alive. It is significant that the first rulers of Sumer and Akkad—the oldest Babylonian cities—frequently made boast of their unknown parentage, which can only be explained by the assumption that descent through the father was not recognised. Thus Sargon,[242] one of the earlier rulers, says: "My mother was a princess, my father I know not ... my mother, the princess, conceived me, in a secret place she brought me forth." A little monument in the Hague museum has an inscription which has been translated thus: "Gudea patesi of Sirgulla dedicates thus to Gin-dung-nadda-addu, his wife." The wife's name is interpreted "maid of the god Nebo." It is thought that Gudea reigned in her right. The inscription goes on to say: "Mother I had not, my mother was the water deep. A father I had not, my father was the water deep." The passage is obscure, but it is explained if we regard this as one of the legends of miraculous birth so frequent in primitive societies under mother-descent.[243] Another relic of some interest is an ancient statue of a Babylonian woman, not a goddess or a queen, who is presented alone and not with her husband, as was common in Egypt; such a monument may suggest, as is pointed out by Simcox, that women at this period possessed wealth in their own right.

As in Egypt, the mother, the father, and the eldest son seem to have been the essential members of the family. We find that the compound substantive translated "family" means literally "children household." This is very interesting and may betoken a conception of marriage and the family like that of the Egyptians, in which the union of the wife and the husband is only fully established by the birth of children.[244] In the house the wife is "set in honour," "glad and gladdening like the mid-day sun." The sun-god Merodach is thus addressed: "Like a wife thou behavest thyself, cheerful and rejoicing." The sun-god himself is made to say, "May the wife whom thou lovest come before thee with joy." These examples, and also many others, such, for instance, as the phrase, "As a woman fashioned for a mother made beautiful," show that the Babylonians shared the Egyptian idealism in their conception of the wife and mother and her relation to the family. Many of the Summerian expressions throw beautiful light on the happiness of the domestic relationships. The union of the wife and husband is spoken of as "the undivided half," the idiogram for the mother signifies the elements "god" and "the house," she is "the enlarger of the family," the father is "one who is looked up to."

The information that has come down to us is not so full as our knowledge of the Egyptian family, or, at least, the facts which relate to women have not yet been so firmly established. We may, however, accept the statement of Havelock Ellis when he says that "in the earliest times a Babylonian woman enjoyed complete independence and equal rights with her brothers and husband."[245]

Later in Babylonian history—though still at an early period—women's rights were more circumscribed, and we find them in a position of some subordination. How the change arose is not clear, but it is probable that in Babylon civilisation followed the usual order of social development, and that with the rise of military activities, bringing the male force into prominence, women fell to a position of inferior power in the family and in the State.

That this was the condition of society in Babylon in the time of Hammurabi (i.e. probably between 2250 B.C. and 1950 B.C.) is proved by the marriage code of this ruler, which in certain of its regulations affords a marked contrast with the Egyptian marriage contracts, always so favourable to the wife. Marriage, instead of an agreement made between the wife and the husband, was now arranged between the parents of the woman and the bridegroom and without reference to her wishes. The terms of the marriage were a modified form of purchase, very similar to the exchange of gifts common among primitive peoples. It appears from the code that a sum of money or present was given by the bridegroom to the woman's father as well as to the bride herself, but this payment was not universal; and, on the other side of the account, the father made over to his daughter on her marriage a dowry, which remained her own property in so far that it was returned to her in the case of divorce or on the death of her husband, and that it passed to her children and, failing them, to her father.[246]

Polygamy, though permitted, was definitely restricted by the code. Thus a man might marry a second wife if "a sickness has seized" his first wife, but the first wife was not to be put away. This is the only case in which two equal wives are recognised by the code. But it was also possible—as the contracts prove—for a man to take one or more secondary wives or concubines, who were subordinate to the chief wife. In some cases this appears to have been done to enable the first wife to adopt the children of the concubine "as her children."[247]

It is worth while to note the exact conditions of divorce in the reference to women as given in the clauses of Hammurabi's code—

So far the position of the wife is secured in the case of the infidelity of the husband. But if we turn to the other side, when it is the woman who is the unfaithful partner it is evident how strongly the patriarchal idea of woman as property has crept into the family relations. We find that a woman "who has set her face to go out and has acted the fool, has wasted her house or has belittled her husband," may either be divorced without compensation or retained in the house as the slave of a new wife.

I would ask you to contrast this treatment with the free right of separation granted to the Egyptian wife, whose position, as also that of her children, in all circumstances was secure, and to remember that this difference in the moral code for the two sexes is always present, in greater or lesser force, against woman wherever the property considerations of father-right have usurped the natural law of mother-right. Conventional morality has doubtless from the first been on the side of the supremacy of the male. To me it seems that this alone must discredit any society formed on the patriarchal basis.

The Babylonian wife was permitted to claim a divorce under certain conditions, namely, "if she had been economical and had no vice," and if she could prove that "her husband had gone out and greatly belittled her." But the proof of this carried with it grave danger to herself, for if on investigation it turned out that "she has been uneconomical or a gad-about, that woman one shall throw into the water." Probably such penalty was not really carried out, but even if the expression be taken figuratively its significance in the degradation of woman is hardly less great. The position of the wife as subject to her husband is clearly marked by the manner in which infidelity is treated. The law provides that both partners may be put to death for an act of unfaithfulness, but while the king may pardon "his servant" (the man), the wife has to receive pardon from "her owner" (i.e. the husband). The lordship of the husband is seen also in his power to dispose of his wife as well as his children for debt.[248] The period for debt slavery was, however, confined to the years of Hammurabi.[249]

From this time onwards we find the position of the wife continuously improving, and in the later Neo-Babylonian periods she again acquired equal rights with her husband. The marriage law was improved in the woman's favour. Contracts of marriage by purchase became very rare. It appears from the later contracts that a wife could protect herself from divorce or the taking of another wife by special penalties imposed on the husband by the conditions of the deed, thus giving her a position of security similar to that of the Egyptian wife.

In all social relations the Babylonian women had remarkable freedom. They could conduct business in their own right. Their power to dispose of property is proved by numerous contract tablets, and, at any rate in later periods, they were held to possess a full legal personality equal in all points with their husbands. In many contracts husband and wife are conjoined as debtors, creditors, and as together taking pledges. The wife, as in Egypt, is made a party to any action of the husband in which her dowry is involved. The wife could also act independently; women appear by themselves as creditors, and in some contracts we find a wife standing in that relation to her husband. In one case a woman acts as security for a man's debts to another woman. In a suit about a slave a woman, who was proved by witnesses to have made a wrongful claim, was compelled to pay a sum of money equivalent to the value of the slave. We find, too, a married woman joining with a man to sell a house. In another case, in which a mother and son had a sum of money owing to them, the debt was cancelled by giving a bill on the mother. The rich woman, by name Gugua, disposes her property among her children, but she reserves the right of taking it back into her own hands if she should so wish, and stipulates that it may not be mortgaged to any one without her consent.[250] There is another interesting deed[251] by which a father who, it is suggested, was a spendthrift, assigns the remnant of his property to his daughter under the stipulation "thou shalt measure to me, and as long as thou livest give me maintenance, food, ointment and clothing."

It would be easy to multiply such cases.[252] All these contract tablets have interest for us. The active participation of the Babylonian women in property transactions is the more instructive when we consider that in the development of commercial enterprise the Babylonians were in advance of all the rest of the world. One is tempted to suggest that the assistance of women may have brought an element into commerce beneficial to its growth. There is ample evidence to show the administrative and financial ability of women. This quality is noted by Lecky in the chapter on "Woman Questions" in his Democracy and Liberty. He says:

He notes, too, the financial ability of the French women.

The estimate of J.S. Mill on this question is too well known to call for quotation. We may recall also the superior ability in trade of the women of Burma. It is not necessary, however, to seek for proof of women's ability in finance. Against one woman who mismanages her income at least six men may be placed who mismanage theirs, not from any special extravagance, but from sheer male inability to adapt expenditure to income. A woman who has had any business training will discriminate better than a man between the essential and the non-essential in expenditure.

The civilisation of a people is necessarily determined to a large extent by the ideas of the relations of the sexes, and by the institutions and conventions that arise through such ideas. One of the most important and debatable of these questions is whether women are to be considered as citizens and independently responsible, or as beings differing in all their capacities from men, and, therefore, to be set in positions of at least material dependence to an individual man. It is the answer to this question we are seeking. The Babylonians decided for the civic equality of their women, and this decision must have affected all their actions from the larger matters of the State down to the smallest points of family conduct. The wisdom which, by giving a woman full control over her own property, recognised her right and responsibility to act for herself, was not, as we have seen, at once established. This recognition of the equality and fellowship between women and men as the finest working idea for the family relationship was only developed slowly through the long centuries of their civilisation.

III.—In Greece

If we turn now from eastern civilisation to ancient Greece, the picture there presented to us is in many ways in sharp contrast to anything we have yet examined. The Greeks founded western civilisation, but their rapid advance in general culture was by no means accompanied by a corresponding improvement in the position of women. The fineness of their civilisation and their exquisite achievement in so many directions makes it the more necessary to remember this.

At one time there would seem to have been in prehistoric Greece a period of fully developed mother-rights, as is proved by numerous survivals of the older system so frequently met with in Greek literature and history. This was at an earlier stage of civilisation, before the establishment of the patriarchal system. There is little doubt, however, that the influence of mother-right remained as a tradition for long after the actual rights had been lost by women.[253] It will be remembered how great was the astonishment of the Greek travellers at the free position of the Egyptian women, in particular the apparent subjection of the husband to his wife. Now, such surprise is in itself sufficient to prove a different conception of the relation of the sexes. The patriarchal view whereby the woman is placed under the protection and authority of the man was already clearly established in the Hellenic belief. Yet, in spite of this fact, the position of the woman was striking and peculiar, and in some directions remarkably free, and thus offering many points of interest not less important in their significance to us than what we have seen already in Egypt and in Babylon.

In speaking of the Hellenic woman I can select only a few facts; to deal at all adequately with so large a subject in briefest outline is, indeed, impossible. I shall not even try to picture the marriage and family relationships, which offer in many and varied ways a wide and fascinating study; all that I can do is to point to some of the conditions and suggest the conclusions which seem to arise from them. Glancing first at the women of the Homeric[254] period we find them represented as holding a position of entire dependence, without rights or any direct control over property; under the rule of the father, and afterwards of the husband, and even in some cases humbly submissive to their sons. Telemachus thus rebukes his mother: "Go to thy chamber; attend to thy work; turn the spinning wheel; weave the linen; see that thy servants do their tasks. Speech belongs to men, and especially to me, who am the master here." And Penelope allows herself to be silenced and obeys, "bearing in mind the sage discourse of her son."[255] This is the fully developed patriarchal idea of the duties of the woman and her patient submission to the man.

Now, if we look only at the outside of such a case as this it would appear that the position of the Homeric woman was one of almost complete subjection. Whereas, as every one knows, the facts are far different. The protection of the woman was a condition made necessary in an unstable society of predominating military activity. Apart from this wardship, women very clearly were not in a subordinate position and, moreover, never regarded as property. The very reverse is the case. Nowhere in the whole range of literature are women held in deeper affection or receive greater honour. To take one instance, Andromache relates how her father's house has been destroyed with all who were in it, and then she says: "But now, Hector, thou art my father and gracious mother, thou art my brother, nay, thou art my valiant husband."[256] It is easy to see in this speech how the early ideas of relationships under mother-right had been transferred to the husband, as the protector of the woman, conditioned by father-right.

Again and again we meet with traces of the older customs of the mother-age. The influence of woman persists as a matter of habit; even the formal elevation of woman to positions of authority is not uncommon, with an accompanying freedom in action, which is wholly at variance with the patriarchal ideal. Thus it is common for the husband to consult his wife in all important concerns, though it was her special work to look after the affairs of the house. "There is nothing," says Homer, "better and nobler than when husband and wife, being of one mind, rule a household."[257] Penelope and Clytemnestra are left in charge of the realms of their husbands during their absence in Troy; the beautiful Chloris ruled as queen in Pylos.[258] Arete, the beloved wife of Alcinous, played an important part as peacemaker in the kingdom of her husband. It is to her Nausicäa brings Ulysses on his return, bidding him kneel to her mother if he would gain a welcome and succour from her father.[259]

We find the Homeric women moving freely among men. They might go where they liked, and do what they liked.[260] As girls they were educated with their brothers and friends, attending together the classes of the bards and dancing with them in the public dancing-places which every town possessed. Homer pictures the youths and the maidens pressing the vines together. They mingled together at marriage feasts and at religious festivals. Women took part with men in offering the sacrifices to the gods; they also went alone to the temples to present their offerings.[261] Nor did marriage restrict their freedom. Helen appears on the battlements of Troy, watching the conflict, accompanied only by her maidens.

This freedom insured to the Homeric women that vigour of body and beauty of person for which they are renowned. Health was the first condition of beauty. The Greeks wanted strong men, therefore the mothers must be strong, and this, as among all peoples who have understood the valuation of life more clearly than others, made necessary a high physical development of woman. Yet, I think, that an even more prominent reason was the need by the woman herself for the protection of the male, which made it her first duty to charm the man whom destiny brought to be her companion. This is a point that must not be overlooked. To me it is very significant that in all the records of the Egyptians, showing so clearly the love and honour in which woman was held, we find no insistence on, and, indeed, hardly a reference to, the physical beauty of woman. It is love itself that is exalted; a husband wishing to honour his lost wife says: "she was sweet as a palm tree in her love," he does not tell us if she were beautiful.[262] I cannot follow this question further. Yet it is clear that danger lurks for woman and her freedom, when to safeguard her independence, she has no other resources than the seduction of her beauty to gain and to hold the love she is able to inspire. Sex becomes a defensive weapon, and one she must use for self-protection, if she is to live. It seems clear to me that this economic use of sex is the real cancer at the very root of the sexual relationship. It is but a step further and a perfectly logical one, that leads to prostitution. At a later period of Hellenic civilisation we find Aristotle warning the young men of Athens against "the excess of conjugal tenderness and feminine tyranny which enchains a man to his wife."[263] Can any surprise be felt; does one not wonder rather at the blindness of man's understanding? That such warning against women should have been spoken in Egypt is incredible. Woman's position and liberty of action was in no way dependent on her power of sex-fascination, not even directly on her position as mother, and this really explains the happy working of their domestic relationships. Nature's supreme gifts of the sexual differences among them were freed from economic necessities, and woman as well as man was permitted to turn them to their true biological ends—the mutual joy of each other and the service of the race. For this is what I want to make clear; it is men who suffer in quite as great a degree as women, wherever the female has to use her sexual gifts to gain support and protection from the male. It is so plain—one thing makes the relations of the sexes free, that both partners shall themselves be free, knowing no bondage that is outside the love-passion itself. Then, and then only, can the woman and the man—the mother and father, really love in freedom and together carry out love's joys and its high and holy duties.

The conditions that meet us when we come to examine the position of women in historic Greece are explained in the light of this valuation of the sexual relationship. We are faced at once by a curious contrast; on one hand, we find in Sparta, under a male social organisation, the women of Æolian and Dorian race carrying on and developing the Homeric traditions of freedom, while the Athenian women, on the contrary, are condemned to an almost Oriental seclusion. How these conditions arose becomes clear, when we remember that the prominent idea regulating all the legislation of the Greeks was to maintain the permanence and purity of the State. In Sparta the first of these motives ruled. The conditions in which the State was placed made it necessary for the Spartans to be a race of soldiers, and to ensure this a race of vigorous mothers was essential. They had the wisdom to understand that their women could only effectively discharge the functions assigned to them by Nature by the free development of their bodies, and full cultivation of their mental faculties. Sappho, whose "lofty and subtle genius" places her as the one woman for whose achievement in poetry no apology on the grounds of her sex ever needs to be made, was of Æolian race. The Spartan woman was a huntress and an athlete and also a scholar, for her training was as much a care of the State as that of her brothers. Her education was deliberately planned to fit her to be a mother of men.

It was the sentiment of strict and zealous patriotism which inspired the marriage regulations that are attributed to Lycurgus. The obligation of marriage was legal, like military service.[264] All celibates were placed under the ban of society.[265] The young men were attracted to love by the privilege of watching (and it is also said assisting in) the gymnastic exercise of naked young girls, who from their earliest youth entered into contests with each other in wrestling and racing and in throwing the quoit and javelin.[266] The age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken that the Spartan girls should not marry too soon; no sickly girl was permitted to marry.[267] In the supreme interest of the race love was regulated. The young couple were not allowed to meet except in secret until after a child was born.[268] Brothers might share a wife in common, and wife lending was practised. It was a praiseworthy act for an old man to give his wife to a strong man by whom she might have a child.[269] The State claimed a right over all children born; each child had to be examined soon after birth by a committee appointed, and only if healthy was it allowed to live.[270]

Such a system is no doubt open to objections, yet no other could have served as well the purpose of raising and maintaining a race of efficient warriors. The Spartans held their supremacy in Greece through sheer force and bravery and obedience to law; and the women had equal share with the men in this high position. Necessarily they were remarkable for vigour of character and the beauty of their bodies, for beauty rests ultimately on a biological basis.

Women took an active interest in all that concerned the State, and were allowed a freedom of action even in sexual conduct equal and, in some directions, greater than that of men. The law restricted women only in their function as mothers. Plato has criticised this as a marked defect of the Spartan system. Men were under strict regulation to the end of their days; they dined together on the fare determined by the State; no licence was permitted to them; almost their whole time was occupied in military service. No such regulations were made for women, they might live as they liked. One result was that many wives were better educated than their husbands. We find, too, that a great portion of land passed into the hands of women. Aristotle states that they possessed two-fifths of it. He deplores the Spartan system, and affirms that in his day the women were "incorrigible and luxurious"; he accuses them of ruling their husbands. "What difference," he says, "does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by women, for the result is the same?"[271] This gynæcocracy was noticed by others. "You of Lacedæmon," said a strange lady to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, "are the only women in the world that rule the men." "We," she answered, "are the only women who bring forth men."[272] Such were the Spartan women.

In Athens the position of women stands out in sharp contrast. Athens was the largest of the city-states of Greece, and, for its stability, it was ruled that no stranger might enter into the rights of its citizens. Restrictions of the most stringent nature and punishments the most terrible were employed to keep the citizenship pure. As is usual, the restrictions fell most heavily upon women. It would seem that the sexual virtue of the Athenian women was not trusted—it was natural to women to love. Doubtless there were many traces of the earlier sexual freedom under mother-right. Women must be kept in guard to ensure that no spurious offspring should be brought into the State. This explains the Athenian marriage code with its unusually strict subordination of the woman to her father first, and then to her husband. It explains also the unequal law of divorce. In early times the father might sell his daughters and barter his sisters. This was abolished by Solon, except in the case of unchastity. There could, however, be no legitimate marriage without the assignment of the bride by her guardian.[273] The father was even able to bequeath his unmarried daughters by will.[274] The part assigned by the Athenian law to the wife in relation to her husband was very similar to that of the married women under ancient Jewish law.

Women were secluded from all civic life and from all intellectual culture. There were no regular schools for girls in Athens, and no care was taken by the State, as in Sparta, for the young girls' physical well-being. The one quality required from them was chastity, and to ensure this women were kept even from the light of the sun, confined in special apartments in the upper part of the house. One husband, indeed, Ischomachus, recommends his wife to take active bodily exercise as an aid to her beauty; but she is to do this "not in the fresh air, for that would not be suitable for an Athenian matron, but in baking bread and looking after her linen."[275] So strictly was the seclusion of the wife adhered to that she was never permitted to show herself when her husband received guests. It was even regarded as evidence of the non-existence of a regular marriage if the wife had been in the habit of attending the feasts[276] given by the man whom she claimed as husband.

The deterioration of the Athenian citizen-women followed as the inevitable result. It is also impossible to avoid connecting the swift decline of the fine civilisation of Athens with this cause. Had the political power of her citizens been based on healthier social and domestic relationships, it might not have fallen down so rapidly into ruin. No civilisation can maintain itself that neglects the development of the mothers that give it birth.

As we should expect we find little evidence of affection between the Athenian husband and wife. The entire separation between their work and interests would necessarily preclude ideal love. Probably Sophocles presents the ordinary Greek view accurately, when he causes one of his characters to regret the loss of a brother or sister much more than that of a wife. "If a wife dies you can get another, but if a brother or sister dies, and the mother is dead, you can never get another. The one loss is easily reparable, the other is irreparable."[277] We could have no truer indication than this as to the degradation into which woman had fallen in the sexual relationship.

That once, indeed, it had been far otherwise with the Athenian women the ancient legends witness. Athens was the city of Pallas Athene, the goddess of strength and power, which in itself testifies to a time when women were held in honour. The Temple of the Goddess, high on the Acropolis, stood as a relic of matriarchal worship. Year by year the secluded women of Athens wove a robe for Athene. Yet, so complete had become their subjection and their withdrawal from the duties of citizens, that when in the Theatre of Dyonysus men actors personated the great traditional women of the Greek Heroic Age, no woman was permitted to be present.[278] What wonder, then, that the Athenian women rebelled against the wastage of their womanhood. That they did rebel we may be certain on the strength of the satirical statements of Aristophanes, and even more from the pathos of the words put here and there into the mouths of women by Euripides—