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WOMAN

In all ages and in all countries

GREEK WOMEN

by

MITCHELL CARROLL, Ph.D.
Professor of Classical Philology in the George
Washington University

_Copyrighted 1907-1908_




GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The history of woman is the history of the world. Strait orthodoxy may
remind us that man preceded woman in the scheme of creation and that
therefore history does not begin with woman; but this is a specious
plea. The first historical information that we gain regarding Adam is
concerned with the creation of woman, and there is nothing to show us
that prior to that time Adam was more active in mind or even in body
than a mollusc. It was not until the coming of woman that history began
to exist; and if the first recorded act of the woman was disastrous in
its consequences, at least it possesses the distinction of making
history. So that it may well be said that all that we are we owe to
woman. Whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden is to be
implicitly accepted, there can be no doubt that from the moment of the
first appearance of mankind on the scene woman has been the ruling cause
of all effect.

The record of woman is one of extremes. There is an average woman, but
she has not been found except in theory. The typical woman, as she is
seen in the pages of history, is either very good or very bad. We find
women saints and we find women demons; but we rarely find a mean. Herein
is a cardinal distinction between the sexes. The man of history is
rarely altogether good or evil; he has a distinct middle ground, in
which we are most apt to find him in his truest aspect. There are
exceptions, and many; but this may be taken as a rule. Even in the
instances of the best and noblest men of whom we have record this rule
will hold. Saint Peter was bold and cautious, brave and cowardly, loving
and a traitor; Saint Paul was boastful and meek, tender and severe;
Saint John cognized beyond all others the power of love, and wished to
call down fire from heaven upon a village which refused to hear the
Gospel; and it is most probable that the true Peter and Paul and John
lived between these extremes. Not so with the women of the same story.
They were throughout consistent with themselves; they were utterly pure
and holy, as Mary Magdalene,--to whose character great wrong has been
done in the past by careless commentary,--or utterly vile, as Herodias.
Extremism is a chief feminine characteristic. Extremist though she be,
woman is always consistent in her extremes; hence her power for good and
for evil.

It is a mistaken idea which places the "emancipation" of woman at a late
date in the world's history. From time immemorial, woman has been
actively engaged in guiding the destinies of mankind. It is true that
the advent of Christianity undoubtedly broadened the sphere of woman and
that she was then given her true place as the companion and helper
rather than the toy of man; but long before this period woman had
asserted her right to be heard in the councils of the wise, and the
right seems to have been conceded in the cases where the demand was
made. Those who look upon the present as the emancipation period in the
history of woman have surely forgotten Deborah, whose chant of triumph
was sung in the congregation of the people and was considered worthy of
preservation for all future ages to read; Semiramis, who led her armies
to battle when the Great King, Ninus, had let fall the sceptre from his
weary hand, and who ruled her people with wisdom and justice; and others
whose fame, even if legendary in its details, has come down to us.
Through all the ages there was opportunity for woman, when she chose to
seize it; and in many cases it was thus seized. Rarely indeed do we find
the history of any age unconcerned with its women. Though their part may
at times seem but minor, yet do they stand out to the observant eye as
the prime causes of many of the great events which make or mark epochs.
When we think of the Trojan War, it is Agamemnon and Priam, Achilles and
Hector, who rise up before our mental vision as the protagonists in that
great struggle; but if there had been no Helen, there would have been no
war, and therefore no Iliad or Odyssey. We read Macaulay's stirring
ballad of_ Horatius at the Bridge, _and we thrill at the recital of
strength and daring; but if it had not been for the virtue of Lucretia,
there would have been no combat for the bridge, and the Tarquins might
have ended their days in peace in the Eternal City. And, in later times,
though Mirabeau and Robespierre and Danton and Marat fill the eye of the
student of the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution, it was the
folly of Marie Antoinette that gave these men their opportunity and even
paved the way for the rise and meteoric career of a greater than them
all.

These are instances of mediate influence upon great events; but there
have been many women who ham exerted immediate influence upon the story
of mankind. That which is usually mistermed weakness is generally held
to be a feminine attribute; and if we replace the term by the truer
word,--gentleness,--the statement may be conceded. But there have been
many women who have been strong in the general sense; and these have
usually been terribly strong. Look at Catherine of Russia, vicious to
the core, but powerful in intellect and will above the standard of
masculine rulers. Look at Elizabeth of England, crafty and false, full
of a ridiculous vanity, yet strong with a strength before which even
such men as Burleigh and Essex and Leicester were compelled to bow.
Look at Margaret of Lancaster, fighting in her husband's stead for the
crown of England and by her undaunted spirit plucking victory again and
again from the jaws of defeat, and yielding at last only when deserted
by every adherent. Look at Clytemmstra and Lady Macbeth, creatures of
the poet's fancy if you will, yet true types of a class of femininity.
They have had prototypes and antitypes, and many.

Women have achieved their most decisive and remarkable effects upon the
history of mankind by reaching and clinging to extremes. Extremism is
always a mark of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm accomplishes effects which
must have been left forever unattained by mere regulated and
conscientious effort. The stories of the Christian martyrs show in
golden letters the devotion of women to a cause; and I have no doubt
whatever that it was in the deaths of young maidens, in their hideous
sufferings borne with resignation and even joy, that there came the
conviction of truth which is known as the seed which was sown in the
blood of the martyrs. The high enthusiasm which supported a Catherine
and a Cecilia in their hours of trial was strong to persuade where the
death of a man for his convictions would have been looked upon as a
matter of course. It is from this enthusiasm and extremism that there
sounds one of the key-notes of woman's nature--her loyalty. Loyalty is
one of the blending traits of the sexes; yet, if I were compelled to
attribute it distinctively to one sex, I should class it as feminine in
its nature.

Loyalty to one idea, to one ideal, has been a predominant characteristic
of woman from time immemorial. Sometimes this loyalty takes the form of
patriotism, sometimes of altruism, sometimes of piety in true sense; but
always it has its origin and life in love. The love may be diffused or
concentrated, general or particular, but it is always the soul of the
true woman, and without it she cannot live. Love for her God, love for
her race, love for her country, love for the man whom she delights to
honor--these may exist separately or as one, but exist for her they
must, or her life is barren and her soul but a dead thing. Love, in the
true sense of the word, is the essence of the woman-soul; it is the soul
itself. She must love, or she is dead, however she may seem to live.
That she does not always ask whether the object of her love, be it
abstract or concrete, be worthy of her devotion is not to be attributed
to her as a fault, but rather as a virtue, since the love itself expands
and vivifies her soul if itself be worthy. It is at once the expression
and the expenditure of the unsounded depths of her soul; it is through
its power over her that she recognises her own nature, that she knows
herself for what she is. The woman who has not loved, even in the
ordinary human and limited meaning of the word, has no conception of her
own soul.

Thus far I have spoken of love in its broad sense, as the highest
impulse of the human soul. But there is another and a lower aspect of
love, and this is the one most usually meant when we use the word,--the
attraction of sex. Even thus, though in this aspect love becomes a far
lesser thing, it possesses no less power. The passion of man for woman
has been the underlying cause of all history in its phenomenal aspects.
The favorite example of this power has always been that of Cleopatra and
Mark Antony; but history is full of equally convincing instances.

To love and to be loved; such is the ultimate lot of woman. It matters
not what accessories of existence fate may have to offer; this is the
supreme meaning of life to woman, and it is here that she finds her true
value in the world. She may read that meaning in divers manners; she may
make of her place in life a curse or a blessing to mankind. It matters
not; all returns to the same cause, the same source of power_. _The
strongest woman is weak if she be not loved, for she lacks her chief
weapon with which to conquer; the weakest is strong if she truly have
won love, for through this she can work miracles. Her strength is more
than doubled; heart and brain and hand are in equal measure, for that
with which the heart inspires the brain will be transmitted by the heart
to the hand, and the message will be too imperative to fear failure.

It is a strange thing--though not inexplicable--that your ambitious
woman is far more ruthless, far more unscrupulous, far more determined
to win at any cost, than is the most ambitious of men. Again comes the
law of extreme to show cause that this should be; but the fact is so
sure that cause is of less interest. Not Machiavelli was so false, not
Caligula was so cruel, not Caesar was so careless of right, as the woman
whose political ambition has taken form and strength. That which bars
her path must be swept aside, be it man or notion or principle. She sees
but the one object, her goal, looming large before her; and she moves on
with her eyes fixed, crushing beneath her feet all that would turn her
steps.

I have spoken of the cruelty of an ambitious woman; and it is worth
while to pause a moment to consider this trait as displayed in
women--not as a means, but as an end. There have been men who loved
cruelty for its own sake; but they are few, and their methods crude,
compared with the woman who have felt this strange passion. In the days
of human sacrifices, it was the women who most thronged to the
spectacles, who most eagerly fastened their eyes upon the expiring
victims. In the gladiatorial combats, it was the women who greeted each
mortal thrust with applause, and whose reversed thumbs won the majority
