As it is claimed that the history of the natural growth of society is represented by the extant tribes in the varying stages of advancement from savagery to civilization, and as upon our first acquaintance with the Greeks we find them just emerging from barbarism and preparing to enter upon a civilized career, we may naturally expect to find in their various traditions, customs, forms of marriage, etc., some hint of that influence which, but little more than one ethnical period before, had been exercised by women, and some clue to the processes involved in the change from female to male supremacy.
From the facts which are gradually coming to light concerning society in the early historic period, it is observed that the extant mythoses and traditions of the ancients contain a mixture of history, mythology, and astrology. Until a comparatively recent time no attempt has been made to separate the former from the latter two.
Herodotus opens his account of the Greeks with a story of the capture of women. The Phœnicians, the great maritime people of that time, had sent ships loaded with merchandise to Argos. When nearly all was disposed of there came down to the beach several women among whom was Io, child of Ianchus the king. As the women were standing by the stern of the ship attending to their purchases, the foreign sailors rushed upon them and attempted to carry them off. The most of them made their escape, but a number were taken away and Io amongst them.169
Doubtless beneath this myth is concealed a religious doctrine which had an historical basis. The original version of the legend was that Io who was carried to Egypt by a god became the mother of a race of hero-kings; but when the true significance of the early physiological, religious myth was forgotten, this one of Io, too, after having become mutilated and distorted to suit a more degenerate time, was accepted in a purely literal sense and made to do duty as actual history. Following this narrative in the history of Herodotus is the story of Europa who was carried away by the Greeks.
In the next generation was enacted the seizure of Helen by Paris, son of Priam, a deed which, whether committed for revenge or lust, is supposed to have constituted the sole cause of the Trojan War—a struggle which continued for nine years. Helen had previously, and while but a child, according to Plutarch, been carried off by Theseus, founder of Athens, and borne away to Egypt. Indeed it would seem from the accounts of this hero that his exploits were instigated for the most part by a desire to possess himself of women. Even later in the history of the Greeks we find that Pausanius, King of Sparta, upon the defeat of the barbarians, received as his share of the booty, ten specimens of the following articles: “women, horses, talents, and camels.” The familiar story of the seizure of the Sabine women by the Romans is regarded as a probable myth or as a doubtful fact; yet, when we remember that not far distant in the past, capture constituted the only form of marriage, the acts of violence committed on women are invested with a fresh interest, for by them we are enabled to trace the identity of the processes of development between historic nations and the tribes occupying a lower position in the scale of advancement.
Although Homer traces genealogies through fathers, the fact will doubtless be observed that two generations generally suffice to carry men back to an unknown or divine progenitor. Indeed many of the Greeks of Homer’s time sprang directly from gods. Tlepolemus was of the stock of Hercules. Priam and his sons were descendants of Zeus, and many of the noblest Greeks derived their origin from Mars. Helen also was the descendant of Zeus.
A tradition from Varro in reference to the decline of woman’s power in Athens is as follows:
In the age of Cecrops two wonders sprang from the earth at the same time, one of which was the olive tree, the other water. The king in terror dispatched a messenger to Delphi to ascertain what he was to do in the matter. The oracle in response answered that the olive tree signified Minerva (Athene), and the water Neptune (Poseidon); and that it was optional with the Burgesses after which of the two they would name their town. Cecrops convened an assembly of the Burgesses, both men and women, for it was customary then for the women to take part in the public counsels. The men voted for Poseidon, the women for Athene, and as there were more women than men by one, Athene conquered. Thereupon Poseidon became enraged, and immediately the sea flowed over all the land of Athens. To appease the god the Burgesses were compelled to impose a three-fold punishment upon their wives: They were to lose their votes; the children were to receive no more the mother’s name; and they themselves were no longer to be called Athenians after the goddess.
We are assured that prior to the struggle between Athene and Poseidon for the mastery in Athens, children in Attica and Lycia were named after their mothers, and that the people as a body were called after the goddess. Formerly the women were actual Burgesses but after the decision that the office of father in the processes of reproduction is superior to that of the mother the women lost their position as Burgesses and became only the wives of Burghers. It is the vote of Athene herself which decides that the child is the production of the father. The ancient Attic traditions are full of references to female supremacy. Indeed, Herr Bachofen is certain that he has found proof of female descent and supremacy not only among the early Greek tribes but in every branch of the Indo-Germanic family.
The Grecian tribes were named after women, as were also the ancient cities of Greece. The founders of these cities and the eponymous leaders of the various peoples were women who had been “carried off by gods.” Sarpedon and Minos who quarrelled over the government of Lycia were the sons of Europa170 who had been carried off from Tyre on the Phœnician coast. Thebe, the eponymous leader of the Thebans, and Egina, the founder of Egina, were sisters. Therefore when the oracle commanded the Thebans to seek succour from their nearest of kin, they applied to the Eginetans, thereby proving that at that time relationships were still traced through women.
The Greek tradition of the Scythian nation is as follows: As Hercules was passing through the country he came to a district called the Woodland. While he slept, the mares which he had loosed from his chariot wandered away, and while in quest of them he came to a cave in which dwelt a being with the head of a woman and the body of a serpent, probably a goddess representing the two creative principles throughout nature. Upon being asked by Hercules if she had seen his mares, she replied, “yes,” but that unless he would remain with her she would not yield them to him, whereupon he consented to do her bidding. Later, as she questioned him as to his wishes concerning the three sons which she had borne him, she said: “Wouldst thou wish that I should settle them here in this land whereof I am mistress, or shall I send them to thee?” Hercules placed in her hand a bow with instruction that the son which when grown to manhood should bend it in a certain way should remain as king of the land. Scythes, the youngest son of the goddess, was the successful competitor. From this time gods, not goddesses, are in the possession of the country.171 Europe, Asia, and Lybia (Africa) are named after women, and in nearly all the earliest traditions, a woman, either divine or human, appears as the eponymous leader of the people.
The tradition respecting the daughters of Danaūs fleeing from their native land to avoid the hateful caresses of the sons of Egyptus, doubtless refers to a time when relationships were beginning to be traced through males, and when under the ba’al form of marriage they were beginning to claim the right to control the women of their own group.
Egyptus and Danaūs were brothers, the former of whom had fifty sons, the latter fifty daughters. Upon the sons of Egyptus demanding that their cousins unite with them in marriage, the women immediately fled by sea to Argos and placed themselves under the protection of Pelasgus. Although hotly pursued by their tormentors, they reached Argos in safety; the following is their supplication as set forth by Æschylus:
After having reached Argos and after having besought Pelasgus to espouse their cause, he says:
To which they make answer:
The reply of Pelasgus is as follows:
It is plain that these lines refer to a time when woman was not “a thrall to man.” It relates also to a time when the basileus or chief could not act without the consent of his people.
That in the earliest traditions and accounts of the Greeks, women occupy a much more exalted position than they do four or five centuries later, is a fact which can be explained only by the truths which have been set forth in the foregoing pages; namely, the capture of women for wives, at first singly and finally in groups. We have seen that during the period designated as the Latter Status of barbarism, wars were frequently undertaken upon no other pretext than that of securing women for wives. Cities were attacked and destroyed, the men murdered, and the women carried away captives. Property both landed and personal was seized and held by the conquerors, and as these captured women were strangers, aliens, and dependents in the countries to which they were taken, they became simply sexual slaves, or wives, and in process of time sank to the position in which we find them under Solon, the lawgiver of Athens.
The difference in the sentiments entertained toward women during Homer’s time and those which had come to prevail among the Greeks in the sixth century, B.C., may be observed in the following lines from Æschylus, and also in a quotation from The Iliad, which follows. At the siege of Thebes, when the women, fearing captivity more than death, appeared before the sacred images to pray for protection, Etiocles the chief, trembling with fear, and himself praying loudly to Jove, to Earth, and “all the guardian gods,” being displeased with the attitude of the female supplicants, and doubtless eager to exercise his authority over women thus displays his contempt for them:
From this scene pictured by Æschylus five centuries and a quarter B.C., let us return to the siege of Troy, three centuries earlier, and listen to Homer. During the thickest of the fight Helenus, approaching Eneas and Hector, his brother, thus addresses the latter:
that at the fane of Pallas they may supplicate for mercy in behalf of the wives and little ones of the defenders of Troy. Whereupon the noble Hector calls aloud:
After referring to the generally conceded fact that in Europe the spread of civilization has been commensurate with the influence exercised by women, Mr. Buckle expresses himself as being unable to account for the seeming inconsistencies which are presented by a comparison of the position occupied in Greece by the women of Homer’s time, and that as pictured by the laws, usages, and social customs in the age of Plato and his contemporaries.
Although the Greeks during the ages which intervened between Homer and Plato had made many notable improvements in the arts of life, and in various branches of speculative and practical knowledge, women had evidently lost ground, “their influence being less than it was in the earlier and more barbarous period depicted by Homer.”175
The fact will doubtless be borne in mind that at the time Mr. Buckle penned these words comparatively little concerning the construction or organization of primitive society was known. That one ethnical period and a half prior to the earliest age of the historic Greeks, woman’s influence was supreme in the family and in the gens, that descent was reckoned in the female line, and that all rights of succession were traced through mothers, are facts with which this writer was evidently unacquainted; hence, we are not surprised that in contemplating a social phenomenon like that presented by the diminution of woman’s influence during the ages between Homer and Plato, he should have been at a loss to account for it, and that he should have declared that the “causes of these inconsistencies would form a curious subject for investigation.”
Mr. Lecky, also, in referring to the same subject, says:
A broad line must, however, be drawn between the legendary or poetical period, as reflected in Homer and perpetuated in the tragedians, and the later historical period. It is one of the most remarkable, and to some writers one of the most perplexing, facts in the moral history of Greece, that in the former and ruder period women had undoubtedly the highest place, and their type exhibited the highest perfection.176
Of marriage in the legendary period of Greek history, Mr. Grote says:
We find the wife occupying a station of great dignity and influence, though it was the practice for the husband to purchase her by valuable presents to her parents.... She even seems to live less secluded and to enjoy a wider sphere of action than was allotted to her in historical Greece.... A large portion of the romantic interest which Grecian legend inspires is derived from the women.177
From the facts which have been brought to light in relation to the position occupied by women in the age in which Homer wrote, it may be observed that much of the seeming inconsistency noticed by Mr. Buckle, Mr. Lecky, Mr. Grote, and others, between the picture of Greek life as it appeared at this time, and that noticed six or seven centuries later in the age of Plato, may be easily explained. The triumph of the male over the female in human society as exemplified amongst the earliest Greeks, was of such a recent date that the influence of women was not wholly extinct, and the deference due them had not entirely given place to that lofty contempt and biting scorn which characterized the treatment of women by Greek men at a later stage of their career.
Although later in the history of this people, mothers were not regarded as related to their own children, and although in the age of Homer relationships had begun to be reckoned through fathers, in many places this writer reveals to us the fact that the bond between mother and child was stronger than that between father and child, or that the tie between sisters and brothers of the same mother was closer than that between the children of the same father. In Apollo’s address before the assembled gods, in which he advocates the ransoming of the body of Hector by Priam and his sons, Homer puts the following words into the mouth of the oracle:
Numerous illustrations might be drawn from The Iliad as proof of the fact that the tie between mother and child was still regarded as more binding than that between father and child. Homer doubtless represents an age in which the manner of reckoning descent was in dispute, certain tribes acknowledging only the tie between children born of the same mother, others only the bond between those of the same father, while still others acknowledge both, though with a preference for either one or the other. In the Eumenides of Æschylus the idea of male descent is put forth as a new doctrine. Orestes, who has murdered his mother, Clytemnestra, asks: “Do you call me related to my mother?” Although reproaches and imprecations are heaped upon him for his inhumanity, it is found that the new doctrine in which the father is represented as the only real parent, has many adherents—that the gods have concurred in it, Athene herself having succumbed to the new faith.
No one, I think, who is acquainted with the recently developed facts relative to human growth, can carefully read The Iliad without observing the similarity existing between the position occupied by the women of Greece in Homer’s time, and that of the women among the tribes and races in a somewhat lower stage of development. On board the “roomy ships” of the Greeks, the prizes parcelled out to the chiefs were women. We observe that even the daughters of influential and wealthy priests, like the oracle of Apollo, might be “carried off”—an act for which there was absolutely no redress except perhaps an appeal to the gods. Briseis also was a captured prize assigned to Achilles by the Greek warriors. Notwithstanding the fact that wives were still captured, we frequently find women possessed of both wealth and influence. Helen, although the wife of Meneluas, had vast treasure which she was able to take away with her when she was carried off by Paris—treasure over which neither of her husbands seems to have had any control. Laothoë, the aged wife of Priam, had gold and brass of her own with which to ransom her sons,179 and Andromache, the wife of Hector, who came to Ilium from “among the woody slopes of Placos,” brought with her not only wealth but sufficient influence to secure for her the respect of the king’s household.180
We have seen that in an earlier age, at a time when women were free, wives had to be captured from foreign tribes; but later, after the ba’al form of marriage had become established, wives were for the most part selected from the ranks of native-born women, while foreign women were usually utilized as concubines. It is true that in the Homeric age, foreign women sometimes became the wedded wives of their captors, but unless they possessed great wealth, or unless they were the daughters of kings, they were unable to command that degree of consideration due to those who were native-born. The practice, during the early history of the Greeks, of securing foreign women for concubines is doubtless the source whence sprang the custom among the Athenians of later times, of importing all classes of “kept women” from other countries, Athenian women only being reserved for wives.
During the latter stage of barbarism a marked change in the government and in the fundamental principles regulating human conduct had taken place. A review of the facts connected with the history of Greek society during the ages between Homer and Solon shows that coeval with the decline of the cardinal principles of the gens, namely, justice, equality, and fraternity, there had been also a corresponding change in the relations of the sexes; that during the time in which egoism or selfishness had gained the ascendancy over the early altruistic principles developed in human society, woman’s influence had steadily declined.181