above, one of the questions asked concerns the support of parents, so that anyone
who failed to do this was liable to have witness against them in this respect. In view
of women’s legal incapacity, it is not surprising to find that it was much more difficult
for a woman to obtain a divorce than for a man, as Medea justly complains in the
play of Euripides that bears her name.
The basis of marriage was the marriage pledge. After Pericles had tightened up
the law of citizenship, when a youth of eighteen came before his deme to register
himself as a full citizen, he had to offer proof that both his parents were Athenian and
that they were married; this consisted of witnesses to the marriage pledge which had
been made at the start. There is a version of this pledge in a fourth century play as
follows:
I give you this woman for the ploughing of legitimate children.
I agree.
And a dowry of three talents.
I accept that with pleasure.
(Menander, Perikeiromene, 1012–15)It is apparent from all this that the main function of the woman was to produce
legitimate children for the maintenance of the husband’s oikos. Accordingly there
were very strict laws for anyone caught in adultery. An adulteress had to be divorced
and could no longer take part in religious rites.
Aconservative view of the ideal Athenian wife can be found in Xenophon’s
Oeconomicus, aSocratic dialogue in which Socrates is in conversation with one
Ischomachos, a well-to-do ‘gentleman’. He tells Socrates the story of his early,
successful, schooling of his wife, who subsequently came to be an excellent household
manager of what looks like his substantial farm property in the Attic countryside.
Socrates asks whether she already knew how to manage her sphere of responsibility:
‘How on earth could she know that when I received her, Socrates?’, he asked. ‘She
wasn’t yet fifteen years old when she came to me, and in her life up till then
considerable care had been taken that she should see and hear and discover as
little as possible. Don’t you think she should be content if all she knew when she
came was how to turn wool into a cloak, and all she’s seen was how wool-spinning
is assigned to the female servants? I was content, Socrates,’ he added, ‘because
when she came, she’d been excellently coached as far as her appetite [stomach]
was concerned, and that seemed to me to be the most important training, for the
husband as well as the wife.’...
‘For it is better for the woman to stay indoors than to go out, but it is more
reprehensible for the man to stay indoors than to look after the outside work’...RELIGION AND SOCIAL LIFE 129