eplied, sarcastically, "he must donate an ox,
so large as to be able to reach over Taygetus with his head, and drink
out of Eurotas." Upon the startled question, put by the stranger, "How
can an ox be so large?" the Spartan answered laughing: "How is it
possible that there could be an adulterer in Sparta?" At the same time
the self-consciousness of the Spartan woman appears in the proud answer
given a stranger by the wife of Leonidas. On his saying to her: "You
female Lacedaemonians are the only women who rule over your men," she
answered: "So are we the only women who bring men into the world."

The free condition of women under the mother-right promoted her beauty,
raised her pride, her dignity and her self-reliance. The judgment of all
ancient writers is to the effect that, during the period of the
gyneocracy, these qualities were highly developed among women. The
constrained condition that later supervened, necessarily had its evil
effect upon them. The difference appears even in the garb of the two
periods. The garb of the Doric woman hung loose from her shoulders; it
left the arms free, and thighs exposed: it is the garb of Diana, who is
represented as free and bold in our museums. The Ionian garb, on the
contrary, concealed the body and hampered its motion. The garb of woman
to-day is, far more than usually realized, a sign of her dependence and
helplessness. The style of woman's dress amongst most peoples, down to
our own days, renders her awkward, forces on her a sense of weakness,
and makes her timid; and this, finally, finds its expression in her
attitude and character. The custom among the Spartans of letting the
girls go naked until marriageable age--a custom that the climate
allowed--contributed considerably, in the opinion of an ancient writer,
to impart to them a taste for simplicity and for attention to decency.
Nor was there in the custom, according to the views of those days, aught
offensive to decorum, or inciting to lust. Furthermore, the girls
participated in all the bodily exercises, just as the boys, and thus
there was reared a vigorous, proud, self-conscious race, a race that was
conscious of its own merit, as proved by the answer of Leonidas' wife to
the stranger.

In intimate connection with the mother-right, after it had ceased to be
a ruling social principle, stood certain customs, which modern writers,
ignorant of their meaning, designate as "prostitution." In Babylon, it
was a religious d