Unable to endure his accusations, an assembly of women is called at the
Thesmophoria to plan the destruction of their arch enemy. Euripides,
however, hears of the assembly, and prevails on his father-in-law,
Mnesilochus, to disguise himself as a woman and seek admittance, that he
may plead the cause of the tragedian. The humor of the debate lies in
the fact that, after several women have roundly abused Euripides for
slandering their sex, Mnesilochus, attired in rustic female garb,
eloquently reminds them of the truths which Euripides might have
divulged had he chosen to do so. One sin after another is glibly and
facetiously piled up against the feminine record, until the few
calumnies attributed to Euripides seem insignificant beside the mountain
of crimes and foibles the supposed matron heaps up against her sisters.
The picture which Aristophanes, in his clever bit of satire, presents of
the women of his day is an exceedingly repulsive one.
They are
represented as profligate, licentious, stupid, fond of drink, thieves
and liars. No other Greek writer has given them so base a character. But
we must remember that we are reading comedy. "The point of the
_Thesmophoriazusae_, so far as the women are concerned, is that, while
Aristophanes pretends to pillory Euripides for his abuse of them, his
own satire is far more searching and penetrates more deeply into the
secrets of domestic life."
The grotesque distortion by Aristophanes of the character of the
philosopher Socrates is sufficiently well known; the contrast between
the sentiments which he attributes to Euripides and the tragic poet's
own views as presented in his plays is very striking; hence the pictures
that he draws of the life and manners of women must not be accepted
without important allowances. Aristophanes was writing to make people
laugh, not to reveal the secrets of the household, and his plays were
exclusively for an audience of men. Hence coarseness and buffoonery, as
elements of comic effect, are continually availed of, and Aristophanes
considered that he was witty in maligning the female sex. It would
clearly be unfair and even absurd to regard Aristophanes as an accurate
expositor of feminine life in Athens. But it is a noticeable fact that,
from B. C. 411 onward, there is, as seen in the extant plays of
Aristophanes, a marked prominence given to the female sex. Women, who
heretofore have played but a subordinate role in comedy, now frequently
have the principal parts. Comedy, more truly than any other department
of literature, reflects the current thought; and while the characters of
comedy play a role that is the reverse of actuality, comic invention
deals with real movements, and this intentional prominence of the
usually neglected sex can have but one interpretation: the Woman
Question had become a problem which profoundly engaged the attention of
the society of the time.
It is a difficult task to attempt to trace in the comedies of
Aristophanes the thread of a social movement. He utilized the events and
opinions of the day for fun making, and did not greatly concern himself
with the serious aspects of social problems. He was an ultra-conservative, and desired to bring the new thought of the day into
disrepute by exhibiting its ludicrous side. Hence he makes use of the
woman's rights movement to give free rein to his fancy, and to delight
the public with obscene jokes on the vices and weaknesses of women and
with clever caricatures of their leaders. Yet the attentive reader can
get glimpses here and there into the more serious aspects of the
question, and can recognize behind some of the distorted, caricatured
figures types which are not in themselves comic.
The other two plays of Aristophanes in which women figure prominently
are the _Lysistrata_ and the _Ecclesiazusae_. In each of these the
company of women is directed by a leader who in talents and
aggressiveness is far superior to her fellows. These two have not the
many small weaknesses of the other dames; they have the collective
interest of their sex at heart; and they know how to form a plan and
how to carry it through. The other women, in spite of their
thoughtlessness and weakness of character, are dominated by the strong
personalities of their self-appointed leaders. Hence, by a study of the
controlling spirit of each play, in spite of the caricature in the
poet's delineation, we may be able to form some conception of the
currents of thought of the day as they affected women.
Lysistrata is the wife of an Athenian magistrate, and has been strongly
affected by the ill success of the Peloponnesian War.
She has meditated
long over the experiences of the female sex in general during the last
decade of the war. During the first ten years, the Grecian women had
borne in silence and without forming any opinions, in the narrow
confines of the home, the mistakes of their husbands; but gradually they
had observed how politics, in the hands of the men, was going from bad
to worse, and how want was increasing year by year. They began to ask
questions, to find fault in a mild way, though only with the result that
the men sent them back to their domestic duties with the brusque answer:
"War shall be a care to men." That which finally roused the women to
action was the realization that the men, in the face of events, had
unanimously recognized their own helplessness.
Lysistrata therefore, in
Aristophanes's play, counsels the women to break their chains, seize the
reins of government, and bring the dreadful war to an end. She tells the
assembled women that they have carried a double burden in the war. As
mothers, they have borne sons whom they have been compelled to send
forth to death; while as wives, they have been deprived of their
husbands; even the maidens have grown old in single blessedness, on
account of the absence of men available as husbands.
With such words as
these she arouses the spirit of her comrades. They, in turn, speak of
their virtues, their natural gifts, and their love for their native
country, to which they are so much indebted, and in duty to it they are
ready to turn their attention to things of war; for, say they: "The
Attic woman is no slave, and has sufficient courage to take up arms in
her country's cause: now, war shall be a care to women."
These reflections have a decided importance in a consideration of the
social history of the times by suggesting how the female sex developed
under the trying conditions of war.
In the poet's delineation of Lysistrata, the scene in which she
describes to the assembled Athenian and Laconian deputies their
political sins gains special importance. She possesses historical
insight. By recounting historical facts, she reminds them of what the
Laconians have done for the Athenians, and what the latter for the
Laconians, and awakens them to general Pan-Hellenic interests, for which
they should labor in common instead of weakening their power in
fratricidal war. In this address she characterizes herself as follows:
"I am a woman, it is true; but I have understanding; and of myself I am
not badly off in respect of intellect. By having often heard the remarks
of my father and my elders, I have not been ill educated."
We have then in the _Lysistrata_ the women of the day led on in a great
patriotic movement by an educated and eloquent woman.
The play exhibits
a constant battle of words between men and women, each grouped in a
chorus. The women seize the Acropolis and make themselves experts in the
science of war. Their plans succeed; and the husbands are reduced to a
terrible plight by the novel resolution adopted by their wives to bring
them to terms. Envoys at length come from the belligerent parties, and
peace is concluded under the direction of the clever Lysistrata.
If from the unbridled drollery and serious moral of the drama we
endeavor to reach conclusions regarding the Woman Question, they will be
found to be about as follows. There were at this time certain prominent
women who were endeavoring to have the natural capabilities of the
female sex more justly esteemed, and energetic voices were being raised
against the humble status of woman in society and in public affairs.
This movement was quickened in the latter part of the century, owing to
the mistakes of the Peloponnesian War, but the efforts of women to
assert their rights were met by the violent opposition of the
conservative party. The leader in the _Lysistrata_, in her gift of
speech and breadth of understanding, typifies some historical women who
took a prominent part in the movement, and these were, probably, some
aristocratic ladies who had been influenced by Aspasia.
The unique importance of the _Lysistrata_ consists in its portraiture of
the leaders of the woman's rights movement and in its suggestion of the
ambitious projects they were prepared to undertake. The _Ecclesiazusae_
is, like the _Lysistrata_, a picture of woman's ascendency, but it goes
further in satirizing some of the schemes which in daily conversation
and in the works of the philosophers were being presented for bettering
the conditions of society and improving the status of women. The success
of such a play presupposes that the minds of the audience were prepared
for it by the informal discussion of such questions in everyday life.
The Athenian ladies, in the _Ecdesiazusae_, under the leadership of
Praxagora,--who is endowed with much the same gifts as Lysistrata, and
is, in fact, a replica of that clever woman,--disguise themselves as men
and crowd the public assembly; by means of the majority of votes which
they have thus fraudulently obtained, they overturn the government of
the men and proclaim the supremacy of the women in the State.
Praxagora, the leading agitator, is chosen _strategis_, and she
immediately proclaims, as the fundamental principles of the new State,
community of property and free trade between the sexes--
ideas which were
prominent in the ideal _Republic_ of Plato and had been earlier
projected by Protagoras. "The point of the satire consists in this: that
the arguments by which the women get the upper hand all turn on their
avowed conservatism; men change and shift, women preserve their old
customs and will maintain the _ethos_ of the State; but no sooner have
they got authority than they show themselves more democratic than the
demagogues, more new-fangled in their political notions than the
philosophers. They upset time-honored institutions and make new ones to
suit their own caprices, squaring the laws according to the logic of
feminine instinct. Of course, speculations like those of Plato's
_Republic_ are satirized in the farcical scenes which illustrate the
consequences of this female revolution. But perhaps the finest point
about the comedy is its harmonious insight into the workings of women's
minds--a clear sense of what a topsy-turvy world we should have to live
in if women were the lawgivers and governors."
We have thus briefly sketched the indications of the prevalence of the
Woman Question in Athens, as presented in the plays of Aristophanes.
This writer furthermore affords us many ludicrous pictures of woman in
private life, which indicate that the fair sex were not always as weak
as men would have them. The chorus of the _Thesmophoriazusae_ resent the
many ill things said of the race of women,--"that we are an utter evil
to men, and that all evils spring from us, strifes, quarrels, seditions,
painful grief, and war. Come, now, if we are an evil, why do you marry
us, if indeed we are really an evil, and forbid any of us either to go
out, or to be caught peeping out, but wish to guard the evil thing with
so great diligence? And if the wife should go out any whither, and you
then should discover her to be out of doors, you rage with madness, who
ought to offer libations and rejoice, if indeed you really find the evil
thing to be gone away from the house and do not find it at home. And if
we sleep in other peoples' houses, when we play and when we are tired,
everyone searches for this evil thing, going round about the beds. And
if we peep out of a window, everyone seeks to get a sight of the evil
thing. And if we retire again, being ashamed, so much the more does
everyone desire to see the evil thing peep out again. So manifestly are
we much better than you." As portrayed by Aristophanes, the women of his
day manifestly knew how to assert their equality.
Feminine foibles and
weaknesses do not escape his satiric pen. Women are overfond of dress,
and no brilliant or prudent action can be expected of them,
"Who sit deck'd out with flowers, and bearing robes
Of saffron hue, and richly border'd o'er With loose Cimmerian vests and circling sandals."
Furthermore, they are fond of drink, and this vice is mercilessly
satirized. The inexorable oath administered by Lysistrata to her
comrades, in entering upon their crusade to bring about peace, is one
which no Athenian woman would incur the penalty of breaking: "If I
violate my pledge, may the cup be filled with water!"
Occasionally a man found he had married a wife who set aside his
conjugal authority and ruled the household. Thus Strepsiades, the
country gentleman of Aristophanes's _Clouds_, quarrelled with his
luxurious, city-bred wife, of the aristocratic house of Megacles, over
the naming of their son, which was the father's right, and, woman-like,
she carried her point; and this son she brought up to despise his
father's country ways and to squander his father's substance in horse
racing.
Aristophanes was not the only comic poet who indulged in gibes at the
female sex, for the object of comedy was to amuse, and the Athenian
audience of men ever found delight in the portrayal of the weaknesses
and foibles of the opposite sex. Even his predecessor Susarion, who was
the first to compose comedy in verse, and is usually called the inventor
of comedy, gave expression to the current abuse: "Hear, O ye people!
Susarion says this, the son of Philinus, the Megarian, of Tripodiscus:
women are an evil; and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house
without evil; for to be married or not to be married is alike bad." It
is unfortunate for our purpose that so little survives of the numberless
plays of the Middle and New Comedy, especially the latter, for this
comedy of manners presented a close and faithful picture of domestic
life and would have been an almost inexhaustible mine of information on
Attic life in general, full as it was of illustrations of the manners,
feelings, prejudices, and ways of thinking of the Ancient Greeks.
The fragments preserved to us are sufficient, however, to give us
glimpses of the manner in which woman was treated on the stage; and,
while there was much harsh criticism, it is gratifying to note that her
good qualities were at times recognized. Says the poet Antiphanes:
"What! when you court concealment, will you tell The matter to a woman? Just as well
Tell all the criers in the public squares I
'Tis hard to say which of them louder blares."
"Great Zeus," says another poet, "may I perish, if I ever spoke against
woman, the most precious of all acquisitions. For if Medea was an
objectionable person, surely Penelope was an excellent creature. Does
anyone abuse Clytemnestra? I oppose the admirable Alcestis. But perhaps
someone may abuse Phaedra; then I say, by Zeus! what a capital person
was.... Oh, dear! the catalogue of good women is already exhausted,
while there remains a crowd of bad ones that might be mentioned."
"Woman's a necessary and undying evil," says Philemon; and in another
fragment:
"A good wife's duty 'tis, Nicostratus, Not to command, but to obey her spouse; Most mischievous a wife who rules her husband."
Menander, the greatest representative of the New Comedy, has been
compared to a mirror, so clear were the images he presented of human
life. His epigrammatic sayings are justly famous, and many of them refer
to woman. "Manner, not money, makes a woman's charm,"
says he in one
passage; and in another:
"When thou fair woman seest, marvel not; Great beauty's oft to countless faults allied."
"Where women are, there every ill is found," is still another
disparaging sentiment, as is his repetition of the frequent gibe at
marriage:
"Marriage, if truth be told (of this be sure), An evil is--but one we must endure."
Yet the poet was also appreciative of the good qualities in woman, as is
seen in the sentiment: "A good woman is the rudder of her household;"
with which we may compare the words of another poet:
"A sympathetic wife is man's chiefest treasure;"
and at times Menander notes how even a woman of serious faults may prove
to be the greatest blessing:
"How burdensome a wife extravagant; Not as he would may he who's ta'en her live.
Yet this of good she has: she bears him children; She watches o'er his couch, if he be sick, With tender care; she's ever by his side When fortune frowns; and should he chance to die, The last sad rites with honor due she pays."
Surely a touching portraiture of woman's gentle ministry, and worthy to
be compared with Scott's famous lines! In spite of the numerous
complaints against woman, the plays of the New Comedy usually ended in a
happy marriage--the wild youth falls in love with the penniless maiden,
reforms, discovers her to be wellborn, and wins over the angry parent;
then follow joyous wedding festivities, and happiness ever afterward.
Such is the usual course of the plot. Satirical reflections on woman,
especially when made in poetry, must not be taken too seriously; and
where romantic love is also the theme for song, we may be sure that
woman, though much abused, is yet tenderly regarded and highly esteemed
among men.
A social movement for the emancipation of woman, which had occupied the
attention of thinking men and women of Athens in the latter half of the
fifth century before Christ, which had been started by Aspasia in her
salon, which had been discussed by Socrates and the Socratics,
especially AEschines, and which had brought about a battle royal between
the dramatists Euripides and Aristophanes, naturally called for
scientific treatment at the hands of the philosophers.
The works of
Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon accordingly devote much space to the
consideration of the Woman Question. The female sex, hitherto
"accustomed to live cowed and in obscurity,"--as Plato puts it,--justly
claimed more favorable conditions; and the philosophers who endeavored
to bring about a better social status asserted that woman deserved
proper recognition at the hands of men.
Plato had taken seriously to heart the lessons of the Peloponnesian War.
He was keenly sensitive to the evils of democracy as then existent, and
recognized the need of governmental and social reform.
He felt that in
the disregard of women at least half the citizen population had been
neglected, and we have in his works the strongest assertion of the
equality of the sexes.
"And so," he says, in one of his dialogues, "in the administration of a
State, neither a woman as a woman nor a man as a man has any special
function, but the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both sexes;
all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, and in all of
these woman is only a lesser man." "Very true." "Then are we to impose
all our enactments on men and none on women?" "That will never do." "One
woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, another is
not." "Very true." "And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military
exercises, while another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics." "Beyond
question." "And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of
philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit." "This is
also true."
From these premises, recognizing the diversity of gifts among women and
the correspondence of their talents with those of men, though less in
degree, Plato affirms that women should receive a training similar to
that accorded to men; to them should be given the same education and
assigned the same duties, though the lighter tasks should fall to them
as being less strong physically.
"There shall be compulsory education," says Plato, in his Laws, "for
females as well as males; they shall both go through the same exercises.
I assert, without fear of contradiction, that gymnastic exercises and
horsemanship are as suitable to women as to men. I further affirm that
nothing can be more absurd than the practice which prevails in our
country, of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their
strength and with one mind, for thus the State, instead of being a
whole, is reduced to a half."
The view of Plato, as stated in his _Republic_, which aroused the most
hostile criticism was his theory of the community of women as well as of
property. But this grew out of the fundamental thesis in his theory of
government: that the State must be developed into a perfect unity. The
family as a private possession disturbed this unity, and must therefore
be dispensed with.
This theory, however, proved too extreme, even for Plato himself, and in
his Laws he returns to the idea of marriage, but he follows the Spartan
system by putting marriage under the constant surveillance of
legislation. He wishes every man to contract that marriage which is most
beneficial to the State, not that which is most pleasing to himself. He
urges that people of opposing temperaments and of different conditions
in life should wed,--the stronger with the weaker, the richer with the
poorer,--"perceiving that the city ought to be well mingled, like a cup
in which the maddening wine is hot and fiery, but, when chastened by a
soberer god, receives a fair associate and becomes an excellent and
temperate drink." By such arguments he endeavors to beguile the spirits
of men into believing that the equability of their children's
disposition is of more importance than equality when they marry.
The philosopher does not seem to see the humor in his proposal to bring
together contrary natures, nor the pain he would inflict on the parties
most concerned. With him the interest of the State is supreme, and to
that everything must yield.
However, even amid such extreme doctrines we find wise counsel, inspired
by a more practical and humane spirit. Plato finds fault with the
prevailing custom of not giving young people an opportunity to become
acquainted with each other before marriage; and he recognizes, from the
excellent influence of the wife's activity in the home, how much she
might contribute to the well-being of the State if she were taken out of
seclusion and intimately associated with the life of her husband.
The woman's rights movement reached its high-water mark in the works of
Plato. Thenceforth there were a gradual decline in the conception of
woman's capacities and a lessening of the demands for her emancipation.
Aristotle is less generous than Plato in his concessions