Greece
through sheer force and bravery and obedience to law; and the women
had equal share with the men in this high position. Necessarily they
were remarkable for vigour of character and the beauty of their
bodies, for beauty rests ultimately on a biological basis.

Women took an active interest in all that concerned the State, and
were allowed a freedom of action even in sexual conduct equal and, in
some directions, greater than that of men. The law restricted women
only in their function as mothers. Plato has criticised this as a
marked defect of the Spartan system. Men were under strict regulation
to the end of their days; they dined together on the fare determined
by the State; no licence was permitted to them; almost their whole
time was occupied in military service. No such regulations were made
for women, they might live as they liked. One result was that many
wives were better educated than their husbands. We find, too, that a
great portion of land passed into the hands of women. Aristotle states
that they possessed two-fifths of it. He deplores the Spartan system,
and affirms that in his day the women were "incorrigible and
luxurious"; he accuses them of ruling their husbands. "What
difference," he says, "does it make whether the women rule or the
rulers are ruled by women, for the result is the same?"[271] This
gynaecocracy was noticed by others. "You of Lacedaemon," said a strange
lady to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, "are the only women in the world that
rule the men." "We," she answered, "are the only women who bring forth
men."[272] Such were the Spartan women.

In Athens the position of women stands out in sharp contrast. Athens
was the largest of the city-states of Greece, and, for its stability,
it was ruled that no stranger might enter into the rights of its
citizens. Restrictions of the most stringent nature and punishments
the most terrible were employed to keep the citizenship pure. As is
usual, the restrictions fell most heavily upon women. It would seem
that the sexual virtue of the Athenian women was not trusted--it was
natural to women to love. Doubtless there were many traces of the
earlier sexual freedom under mother-right. Women must be kept in
guard to ensure that no spurious offspring should be brought into the
State. This explains the Athenian marriage code with its unusually
strict subordination of the woman to her father first, and then to her
husband. It explains also the unequal law of d