Euripides is more than once guilty—Hippolytus passionately concludes his long tirade, which I have somewhat condensed, with these words, "I can never hate women enough, not though I am permitted to speak always. For they are always evil. So now let someone teach them chastity or let me go on insulting them always."
Against this may well be set a long speech by Medea when she learns that Jason has abandoned her for another bride and that, as she says, "my husband, who was everything to me, has turned out the worst of men." Of all creatures who breathe and think she declares, woman is the most miserable. She has to pay a dowry to get a husband, but does not know beforehand if he will be good or bad. Even in the latter case the remedy of divorce brings disrepute to the woman.
A wife coming into a new situation and new ways which she has not learned at home, must be gifted with second sight to tell how to get on well with her husband. He, if things do not suit him at home, can free his mind of loathing by going elsewhere, but she must gaze at his solitary personality forever. "Men say that we live a life free from danger at home while they fight with the spear," concludes Medea, "but I would stand up against spears thrice rather than once bear child."
The seclusion of woman in the home, to which Medea has just referred and which was the custom in Periclean Athens, is illustrated or enjoined by a dozen or more passages. The best wife and most excellent woman is the one who remains quietly at home, and one long passage argues against even allowing other women to visit her.
On the whole, the general assumption of the passages discussing woman in Euripides seems to be that she is inferior to man and should be humble and occupy a secondary place. "It is better that one man should see the light than a myriad women," says Iphigenia when she finally resolves to die a voluntary death at Aulis. And when among the Tauri, she argues that, if she and Orestes cannot both escape, it is better that the man should be saved. Orestes refuses this sacrifice and declares that he will live or die with her, but he does not offer to die without her, that she may escape. "Save the women first," was not a maxim of Hellenic manhood. Women are many times shown capable of supreme self-sacrifice, so many times in fact, that such conduct seems rather expected of them.
A number of passages speculate about the peculiarities of woman's nature, and besides feminine self-sacrifice, Euripides seems especially impressed by the following points: (1) Woman's physical weakness and usual lack of physical courage, but great moral courage on occasion. "We are women," says
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