espoused her, an inexperienced girl of fourteen, to the duties of her position. The account that ensues of the functions of an Athenian married lady would be applicable, if we except the greater restriction on her personal liberty, to a hired housekeeper of the present day. Her business is to nurse her children, to maintain discipline among her slaves; to be diligent herself at her web, in the management of her kitchen, larder, and bakehouse, and in her care of the furniture, wardrobe, and household property of all kinds; to select a well-qualified stewardess to act under herself, but to allow no undue confidence in her to interfere with her own habits of personal superintendence; to remain continually within doors; she will find abundance of exercise in her walks to and from different parts of the premises, in dusting clothes and carpets, and baking bread or pastry." "From all this it appears, that what are now considered essential qualifications in a married lady of the upper class—presiding at her husband's table, receiving his guests, or enlivening by her conversation his hours of domestic retirement—entered as little into the philosopher's estimate of a model wife as into that of his countrymen at large. Like Pericles, Socrates"—and, we may add, Euripides—"could appreciate female accomplishments in an Aspasia or a Theodota,"[1] but hardly looked for them in wives so trained and employed as was that of Ischomachus.
If Euripides were generally a woman-hater, he was at least not always consistent in his aversion. No one of the Athenian stage-poets has written more to the
- ↑ Colonel Mure's Hist. of Greek Literature, v. 463.
