modesty and sex propriety. In this way his discussion became a Utopian speculation which had no value.[1] In the Republic he advances to a more sweeping theory,[2] denying that any fundamental difference of capacities or capabilities goes with the sex difference. He lays stress on the difference of muscular strength only. From these dogmatic assumptions he argues that women should have the same education as men and share all social and political functions with them.
Aristotle also thought that women should be better educated, though he regarded them as, by nature, inferior to men, and therefore created to obey. In the Problemata he asks why it is considered more direful to kill a woman than a man, although any male is better than any female.[3] In the History of Animals he says that a woman is more compassionate, tearful, envious, complaining, fond of slander, quarrelsome, despondent, imprudent, unveracious, confiding, vindictive, watchful, less active, and requires less food. In this time the bankruptcy of the Spartan system was known to all the world; the Spartan women were useless and in the way in war, and the population had fallen off so that the state was ruined by a single lost battle. Women held the property,[4] and were free, bold, intemperate, and luxurious.[5] Aristotle ended by putting women back just where they were according to the existing mores. Their powers were limited; they had a sphere which was suitable for them; let them do their duty in it.[6]
If we may judge of the views of Menander by the fragments,[7] he held very adverse judgments about women and marriage. Jerome, in his first tract against
