Evening star., 1912-11-23

The distinguished Italian historian Fer
zero points out repeatedly the superiority
of the condition of the women Of Rome
to that Of those Of Athens Under the
Roman law, he says, during the period
Immediately before and after the Chris
tian era. married women owned and con-
trOled their own property, except the
dowry which was given the husband on
the wedding day. In many respects their
economic condit on was better than that
of women In certain of our states to-
day. More than that their social status
was equal to that of men. They enter
tanned their husbands friends, We're pres
ent at social gatherings and bore large
part in the political life of the day.
Asatic idea of the sequestration of
women was mainta ned. The "gynae-
ceum," in which the wife and feminine
relatives of the master of the house re-
sided was in essence the Turkish harem.
with its rigOrs somewhat moderated, but
it's seclusion almost complete. Mar
ried women had little share in the social
LIE Of the day, and none in political af-
fairs. They neither met the friends Of
their husbands nor had any part in the
intellectual life of the circles in which
their lords and masters moved.
AS a result women of class, in our
days without the social pale, welded q
domestic and intellectual bondage which
[dwarfed Their respectable married sisters,
they made Of their houses the meeting
places for the most prominent men In pO-
litical intellectual and artistic circles.
Among women of this ass the fore
most in her time and the greatest in his
tory was Aspasia, beautiful Ionian, the
date of whose birth Is unknown, but who
fiour.shed in the fifth century B. c. How
and why she came to Athens is lost in
the dim mists of the past Presuma bly,
she came there as an adventures seek
ing fortune which she found when by her
beauty, which all contemporary writer's
declare surprising. her manners and her
brillancy she won the heart of Pericles
the greatest ruler Athens ever knew.
The age of Pericles is famous in all
history as the period when Athens
reached the zenith of It's glory In art, in
philosophy and in military prowess. 1t
was then that Phidias flourished and
crowned the Acropolis with his master
pieces. Euripides and Sophocles were
writing dramas which the intel ectual
world still studies: Socrates and Plato
were preaching the phi losophy which lies
at the bottom Of modern ethics; Democ
ritus and Anaxasoras We're evolving po-
litical systems which still influence the
government of the world. Thucydides and
Herodotus were writing the histories
which form the basis Of modern knowl-
edge Of the ancient world. and Pindar was
composing those odes which modern poets
love to translate For all of these the
house of Aspas.a was the rendezvous
How she came to meet Peric'es is not
recorded even in the somewhat vague
traditions of the time when history vas
written on perishable wax tablets. But
that she was to him all that a wife
should be. though denied the legal title,
Is certain. She bore him q son whom,
after the death Of his two legitimate
children, he adopted and to whom he
gave his own name. For his failure to
marry her there were two very sufficient
reasons. In the early days Of their ac-
quaintance he was a married man,
though afterward estranged from his