Up to the day when Greek thought on economic questions formulated, in Aristotle’s “Politics” and “Economics,” the first logical statement of principles, knowledge as to actual conditions for women is chiefly inferential.  When a slave, she was like other slaves, regarded as soulless; and she still is, under Mohammedanism.  As lawful wife she was physically restrained and repressed, and mentally far more so.  A Greek matron was one degree higher than her servants; but her own sons were her masters, to whom she owed obedience.  A striking illustration of this is given in the Odyssey.  Telemachus, feeling that he has come to man’s estate, invades the ranks of the suitors who had for years pressed about Penelope, and orders her to retire to her own apartments, which she does in silence.  Yet she was honored above most, passive and prompt obedience being one of her chief charms.

Deep pondering brought about for Aristotle a view which verges toward breadth and understanding, but is perpetually vitiated by the fact that he regards woman as in no sense an individual existence.  If all goes well and prosperously, women deserve no credit; if ill, they may gain renown through their husbands, the philosopher remarking:  “Neither would Alcestis have gained such renown, nor Penelope have been deemed worthy of such praise, had they respectively lived with their husbands in prosperous circumstances; and it is the sufferings of Admetus and Ulysses which have given them everlasting fame.”

This is Aristotle’s view of women’s share in the life they lived; yet gleams of something higher more than once came to him, and in the eighth chapter of the “Economics,” he adds:  “Justly to love her husband with reverence and respect, and to be loved in turn, is that which befits a wife of gentle birth, as to her intercourse with her own husband.”  Ulysses, in his address to Nausicaa, says:—­

“There is no fairer thing
Than when the lord and lady with one soul
One home possess.”

Aristotle, charmed at the picture, dilates on this “mutual concord of husband and wife, ... not the mere agreement upon servile matters, but that which is justly and harmoniously based on intellect and prudence."[2]

Side by side with this picture of a state known to a few only among the noblest, must be placed the lament of “Iphigenia in Tauris”: 

“The condition of women is worse than that of all human beings.  If man is favored by fortune, he becomes a ruler, and wins fame on the battlefield; and if the gods have ordained him his fortune, he is the first to die a fair death among his people.  But the joys of woman are narrowly compassed:  she is given unasked, in marriage, by others, often to strangers; and when she is dragged away by the victor through the smoking ruins, there is none to rescue her.”

Thucydides, who had already expressed the opinion quoted by many a modern Philistine,—­“The wife who deserves the highest praise is she of whom one hears neither good nor evil outside her own house,”—­anticipates a later verdict, in words that might have been the foundation of Iphigenia’s lament:—­