Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

MATRIMONIUM. M IATRIMONIUM. 739
were of a very jealous and almost Oriental charac- yoke of their wives; and even Aristotle (Pot.
ter. They occupied, as is well known, a separate ii. 6) thought it necessary to account for the cirpart of the house, and in the absence of their hus- curustance, by the supposition that Lycurgus had
band it was thought highly improper for a man failed in his attempt to regulate the life and coneven to enter where they were. (Demosth. c. Euerg. duct of the Spartan women as he had wished. In
pp. 1157, 1150.) From various passages of the short there was a great contrast and difference
Attic comedians it would also seem that married between the treatment of women in the Dorian
women were required to keep at home (oiKospseY), and Ionian states of Greece, which is well deand not allowed to go out of doors without the scribed by MiUller (I. c.) in the following words: -
permission of their husbands. Thus, in a fragment "Amongst the Ionians women were merely conof AMenander (Meineke, p. 87), we are told that sidered in an inferior and sensual light, and though
married women are not allowed to pass the gate of the Aeolians allowed their feelings a more exalted
the court-yard of the house, tone, as is proved by the amatory poetesses of
1 —-— re'pas Pyep a6Xies 3iipa Lesbos, the Dorians, as well at Sparta as isn the
-'EAeuOe'pas yocmi'Eai/ouer' tscles: south of Italy, were almost the only nation who'EAeVpO?vv Vacl l/EdtVzLo~-' ot1iCas:
considered the higher attributes of the female mind
and Aristophanes (Tltesm. p. 790) speaks of their as capable of cultivation." In Sparta, too, the unlhusbands forbidding them to go out. Again, on married women lived more in public than tle mnaroccasions of great public alarm (e.g., when the ried. The former appeared with their fiaces unnews of the defeat at Chaeroneia reached Athens), covered, the latter veiled; and at Sparta, in Crete,
the women are spoken of, not as leaving their and at Olympia, virgins were permitted to be spe(houses, but staading at their doors and inquiring tators of the gymnastic contests, and married
after the fitte of their husbands, a circumstance women. only were excluded. The reverse of tisi3
which is described as being discreditable to them- was the case in Ionia. (Miiller, ii. 2. ~ 2.)
selves and the city (&,vaoiwv a'vcv Kai r7lS 7roXecWS, The preceding investigation will have prepared
Lycurg. c. Leocr. p. 53, Bek.). From a passage in the reader for the fact, that the strictest coljuLgal
Pllstarch (do Gec. Socer. 33) it appears that on this fidelity was required under very severe penalties
subject there was the same feeling at Thebes as fiom the wife [ADUvTEruAIum], while great laxity
iwell as at Athes;; and the same writer (Solon, 21) was allowed to the husband. The general practice
informs us that one of Solon's laws specified the is thus illustrated by Plautus (llCreat. iv. 6. 2):
conditions and occasions upon which women were Nam Si vi scortum duxit cam uxoem suas,
to be allowed to leave their houses. In later times
Id si rescivit uxor, impuri est viro.
there wore nagistrates at Athens (the yuvaiuroUd- Lxor viro si clam domeo egressa est foras,
go0), charged, as their name denotes, with the Viro fit causa, exigitsr natrimonio."
superintendence of the behaviour of women. [GY..
NAECONOMII.] In cases of adultery by the wife, the Athenian
But we must observe that the description given law subjected tle husband to &vrlza, if he conabove of the social condition anld estimation of tinued to cohabit with her; so that she was ipso
women in Greece, does not apply to the Heroic fiScto divorced. (Demosth. c. Neaer. p. 1374.) But
times as described by Homer, nor to the Dorian a separation might be effected in two different
state of Sparta. With respect to the former, we ways: by the, wife leaving the husband, or the:have only space to remark, that the women of the husband dismissing the wife. If the latter sup
Homeric times enjoyed much more freedom and posed her husband to have acted without sufficient
consideration than those of later ages, and that the justification in such a course it was competent for
connection between the sexes was then of a more her after dismissal, or rathler for her guardians,
generous and afiectionate character than after- to bring an actionl for dismissal (lroll &7roerfeurpccs
wards. For another important distinction see Dos or &areSroeuri}s): the corresponding action, if brought
(GlrEr). (Becker, Carciklless, vol. ii. p. 415.) by the husband, was a acj1 a7roXteeiEws. If,
Among the Dorians generally, and in Sparta however, a wife were ill-used in any way by her
especially, the relation of the wife to the husband, husband, he was liable to an: action called a &tK~
and the regard paid to women, was for the most icaicWroreos, so that the wife was not entirely unpart the same as that represented by RHomer to protected by the laws: a conclusion justified by a
have prevailed universally amongst the ancient tfragment in Athenaeus (xiii. p. 559) in which
Greeks; and as such, presented a strong contrast married women are spoken of as relying oii its.
to the habits and principles of the Ionic Athenians, protection. But a separation, whether it origiwvith whom the ancient custom of Greece, in this nated from the husband or wife, was considereel to
respect, was in a great measure supplanted by that. reflect discredit on the latter (5o yap biavAds ErqTnl
of the East. At Sparta, for instanlce, the wife was a1er-X, nv EXcvy, Fct;q. eccadt Slob. p. 67, Gaisford)
honoureed with the title of oer.orvea or "miistress," independent of the difficulties and inconveniences
an appellationl not used unmeaningly or ironically, to which she was subjected by it. At Sparta
and which was common amongst the Thessalians barrenness on the part of a wife seems to have
and other nations of northern Greece. (Miuriller, ii. been a ground for dismissal by the hustand
4. ~ 4.) MSoreover, the public intercourse per- (Herod. vi. 61); and firom a passage in Diol Chjvrmitted by the Dorians between the sexes was sostom (Oralt. xv. p. 447) it has been inferred that
(comparatively at least) of so free and unre- women were ill the habit of imposing supposititious
stricted a character, as to have given occasion children with a -view of keeping (icavraoxcZs')
for the wiell known charges of licentiousness their husbands: not but that the lword admits of,
(aeinis) against the Spartan women. (Eurip. if indeed it does not (from the telise) require, a
Andsrom. 586.) The influence, too, which the different inlterpretation.
Lacedaemonian women enjoyed was so great that This article hlas been maitlly composed from
the Spartans were blamed for submitting to the Becker's Charik.cs (vol. ii. p. 41 5). The duties of
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