Procne, a character in a lost play by Sophocles, describes the difficulty of the marriage transition for a young woman:

"Now outside [my father's house]-I am nothing: Yet I have" often observed woman's nature in this regard, how we are nothing. When we are young in our father's house, I think . we live the sweetest life of all humankind; for ignorance always brings children up delightfully. But when we have reached maturity and can understand, we are thrust out and sold away from the gods of our fathers and our-parents; some to foreigners, some to barbarians, some, to joyless houses, full of criticism. And finally, once a single night has. united us, we have to praise our lot and pretend that all is - well.

Indeed, Procne had a lot to worry about, for her father had...