WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE 9 



and advantages which Sappho, Corinna and their friends 

 had enjoyed was soon for some reason scarcely compre- 

 hensible by us taken from all the women of Greece except 

 the peculiar class known in history as hetcerce companions. 

 These we should now rank among the demimonde, but the 

 Greek point of view was different from ours. The hetaeras 

 were the friends and companions of the men who spent 

 most of their time in public resorts, and they accompanied 

 them to the gymnasium, to banquets, the games, to the 

 theater and other similar assemblies from which the wives 

 and daughters of the Athenians, during the golden age of 

 Greece, were rigorously excluded. For so great was the 

 seclusion in which the wives of the Greeks then lived that 

 they never attended public spectacles and never left the 

 house, unless accompanied by a female slave. They were 

 not permitted to see men except in the presence of their 

 husbands, nor could they have a seat even at their own 

 tables, if their husbands happened to have male guests. 



It was by reason of this strict seclusion and the enforced 

 ignorance to which they were subjected that we hear very 

 little of the virtuous women of this period of Greek his- 

 tory. We have records of a few instances of filial and con- 

 jugal affection, but, outside of this, the names of the wives 

 and daughters of even the most distinguished citizens have 

 long since passed into oblivion. Only the hetaeras attracted 

 public notice, and only among them, during the period to 

 which reference is now made, do we find any women who 

 achieved distinction by their intellectual attainments, or 

 by the influence which they exerted over those with whom 

 they were associated. 



But strange as it may appear, these extra-matrimonial 

 connections, far from incurring the censure which they 

 would now provoke, received the cordial recognition of 

 both legislators and moralists, and even those who were 

 considered the most virtuous among men openly entered 



