Legal Position of Women in Ancient Greece. training was deliberately contrived to fit them to become mothers. All the Spartan women had to marry, except the sickly ones who were not permitted to do so. No sound and healthy girl ever thought of not marrying. The law-giver was successful in his object; for four or five hundred years, there was in Sparta generation after gener ation of the strongest men that possibly ever existed upon the face of the earth and these men were among the bravest of the brave. The State claimed authority over all the children. Soon after birth they were brought before government inspectors, each was ex amined as to his form and probable healthi ness; if the infant was deformed or a weakling the sentence of death was passed upon it. The maidens were not allowed to marry too young. The law looked upon woman only as a mother, and had no rules or regulations for her when she ceased to be such. Aristotle tells us that in his day they had become incorrigible and luxurious, and ruled their hubands. Whoever in Sparta desired a maiden in marriage had to get the consent of her father, or of the kinsmen under whose authority she was. When there were rival claimants for the hand of an heiress the king decided the matter. Permission being gained, the happy suitor proceeded to take possession of his bride by a kind of forcible abduction; this mock capture (a reminiscence of early days), was the form of marriage. The hus band took his bride to the house of a female relative; this woman cut off the bride's hair close to the scalp, dressed her in male attire laid her on a mattress and left her in the dark, bidding her abide events. The bridegroom on returning from his customary meal, stealthily crept in and carried her to another couch. Even after this she was not taken to his house, but left either with this relation or at her own home, lest the pair should too soon tire of each other. He visited her clandestinely, and kept up the r6le of bache
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lor life until the first child was born. Some times several children were born without the young people seeing each other by daylight. When at last the husband carried her home he often took her mother with her. Similar marriage practices prevailed in Crete. Marriage was demanded by the law of every citizen who was in possession of an allotment of land — it was the fulfilment of an obligation to the State. Younger sons who had no estate of their own, but lived with their elder brother were not obliged to marry; but they sometimes shared their elder's wife, until a provision was made for them, either by adoption into a childless house, or by marriage with an heiress. The youths who did not marry when in a posi tion to do so were liable to severe penalties, and according to the laws of Lycurgus hardened celibates were placed under the ban of society. They were not permitted to see the exercises of the maidens, and on certain days in winter had to march round the market-place, naked and singing a song most uncomplimentary to themselves; and when they were old the young paid them neither honor nor respect. The women also, at a certain festival dragged these mis guided men round and round an altar, in flicting blows upon them all the time. Men were punished even for marrying too late, or for marrying women disproportionately young or old, or for forming an otherwise unsuitable connection. Marriage by citizens with foreign women was not only forbidden and deemed invalid, but it was even punished. In Sparta no one would marry the daugh ter of a coward; and no one would give his daughter in marriage to such an one; and yet if he had no wife he was -punished like other bachelors. King Archidamus was censured because he married a wife of small stature, who, in the opinion of the ephors, would bear not kings, but kinglets. One of Solon's laws enacted that connubial duties should be performed by each married person at least thrice a month. Another
