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Greek Women by Mitchell Carroll

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Greek Women by Mitchell Carroll GREEK WOMEN BY MITCHELL CARROLL I GREEK WOMEN Whenever culture or art or beauty is theme for thought, the fancy at once wanders back to the Ancient Greeks, whom we regard as the ultimate source of all the æsthetic influences which surround us. To them we look for instruction in philosophy, in poetry, in oratory, in many of the problems of science. But it is in their arts that the Greeks have left us their richest and most beneficent legacy; and when we consider how much they have contributed to the world's civilization, we wonder what manner of men and women they must have been to attain such achievements. Though woman's influence is exercised silently and unobtrusively, it is none the less potent in determining the character and destiny of a people. Historians do not take note of it, men overlook and undervalue it, and yet it is ever present; and in a civilization like that of the Greeks, where the feminine element manifests itself in all its higher activities,--in its literature, its art, its religion,--it becomes an interesting problem to inquire into the character and status of woman among the Greek peoples. We do not desire to know merely the purely external features of feminine life among the Greeks, such as their dress, their ornaments, their home surroundings; we would, above all, investigate the subjective side of their life--how they regarded themselves, and were regarded by men; how they reasoned, and felt, and loved; how they experienced the joys and sorrows of life; what part they took in the social life of the times; how their conduct influenced the actions of men and determined the course of history; what were their moral and spiritual endowments;--in short, we should like to know the Greek woman in all those phases of life which make the modern woman interesting and influential and the conserving force in human society. Yet, when we estimate our sources of information, we find that there is no problem in the whole range of Greek life so difficult of solution as that concerning the status and character of Greek women. The first condition of a successful study of Greek women is to familiarize one's self with the milieu in which they lived and moved. To do this we must adapt ourselves to a manner of life and to conceptions and feelings widely different from our own. The Greek spirit of the fifth century before the Christian era has but little in common with the spirit of the twentieth century; and unless we gain some insight into the spirit of the Greeks, we cannot understand the fundamental differences between the life of the Greek woman and that of the modern woman. Let us note a few respects in which this difference shows itself. The Greek attitude toward nature was that of reverent children who saw everywhere therein manifestations of the divine. To them everything was what we call supernatural. If wine gladdened the heart of man, it was the influence of a god. If love stirred the breast, a god was inspiring man with a sweet influence, and the divine power must not be resisted. The gods themselves yielded to the impulses of love; why should not men? Furthermore, Greek thought conceived of the human being as the noblest creation of nature. Christian theology conceives of the body as the prison house of the soul, from which the soul must escape to attain its highest development; the Greeks, on the other hand, regarded body and soul as forming a complete, inseparable, and harmonious unit. There was no impulse toward distinguishing between the two, no restless reaching out toward something regarded as higher and nobler; seeing infinite possibilities in man as man, the Greek sought only the idealization of the human being as such, the completion and realization of the highest type of humanity, physical and spiritual. Because of this peculiar conception of man, the gods of the Greeks rose out of nature and did not transcend it. Some of them were personifications of the forces of nature; others were merely, according to Greek ideas, the highest conceptions of what was admirable in man and woman. When we consider the goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon, we see that this conception of the ideal in woman must have been very high, manifesting itself in the characters of Hera, the goddess of marriage and of the birth of children; Athena, "intellect unmoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of serene, unclouded wisdom;" Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of the domestic life; Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty and the idealization of feminine graces and charm; Artemis, the maiden divinity never conquered by love, and the protectress of maidens; and Hestia, goddess of the hearth and preserver of the sanctity of the home. It is difficult for us to appreciate the passionate love of beauty which animated the Greeks. "What is good and fair Shall ever be our care. That shall never be our care Which is neither good nor fair." This immortal burden from the stanzas of Theognis, sung by the Muses and Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, "strikes," says Symonds, "the keynote to the music of the Greek genius." This innate love of beauty, fostered by natural surroundings and held in restraint by a sense of measure, was the most salient characteristic of the Greek people. It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of the divine Aphrodite. They were inspired with awe, and would have deemed it sacrilege to mar or destroy such a perfect masterpiece of creative power." Nor was the Greek conception of beauty purely sensual. Through the perfection of human loveliness they had glimpses of divine beauty, and "the fleshly vehicle was but the means to lead on the soul to what is eternally and imperishably beautiful." Thus the lesson of the Phædrus and Symposium of Plato is that "the passion which grovels in the filth of sensual grossness may be transformed into a glorious enthusiasm, a winged splendor, capable of rising to the contemplation of eternal verities and reuniting the soul of man to God." This last reflection leads us to the most important difference between ancient and modern conceptions, that in regard to the relations between the sexes. We of the Christian era have a clear doctrine of right and wrong to guide us, a law given from without ourselves, the result of revelation. The Greeks, on the other hand, "had to interrogate nature and their own hearts for the mode of action to be pursued. They did not feel or think that one definite course of action was right and the others wrong; but they had to judge in each case whether the action was becoming, whether it was in harmony with the nobler side of human nature, whether it was beautiful or useful. Utility, appropriateness, and the sense of the beautiful were the only guides which the Greeks could find to direct them in the relations of the sexes to each other." Hence we find that the Greeks deemed permissible much which offends the modern sense of propriety; for example, when maidens captured in war became for a time the concubines of the victors, as Chryseis in the Iliad, and were afterward restored to their homes, they were not thought in the least disgraced by their misfortune; "for if such a stain happen to a woman by force of circumstances," says Xenophon, "men honor her none the less if her affection seems to them to remain untainted." How, then, are we to bridge over the gulf which separates us from the Greeks? What are our sources of knowledge of Greek woman and her manner of life? We must first of all know the country of the Greeks. The influence of country and climate on the Greek nationality has been frequently emphasized, and the physical phenomena which moulded the characters of the men must also have affected the women. A climate so mild that, as Euripides says, "the cold of winter is without rigor, and the shafts of Phoebus do not wound;" a soil midway between harsh sterility and luxurious vegetation; a system of fertile plains and rugged plateaus and varied mountain chains; a coast indented with innumerable inlets and gulfs and bays--these were the physical characteristics which moulded the destinies of Greek women. Furthermore, the modern Greek people trace the threads of their history unbroken back to ancient times, in spite of the incursions of alien peoples and years of subjugation to the Turk. Many ancient customs survive, such as the giving of a dowry and the bathing of the bride before the wedding ceremony. On the islands of the Ægean, where there has been but little intercourse with foreigners, the type of features so familiar to us from Greek sculpture still prevails, and the visitor can see beautiful maidens who might have served as models for Phidias and Praxiteles. The configuration of the land led to the Greek conception of the city-state--the feature of internal polity which had most to do with the seclusion of women.
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