1 - How the Great General Belisarius Was Hoodwinked by His Wife

From: “The Secret History” – by Pocopius of Caesarea


1 - How the Great General Belisarius Was Hoodwinked by His Wife

The father of Belisarius's wife, a lady whom I have mentioned in my former books, was (and so was her grandfather) a charioteer, exhibiting that trade in Constantinople and Thessalonica. Her mother was one of the wenches of the theater; and she herself from the first led an utterly wanton life. Acquainted with magic drugs used by her parents before her, she learned how to use those of compelling qualities and became the wedded wife of Belisarius, after having already borne many children.

Now she was unfaithful as a wife from the start, but was careful to conceal her indiscretions by the usual precautions; not from any awe of her spouse (for she never felt any shame at anything) and fooled him easily with her deceptions), but because she feared the punishment of the Empress. For Theodora hated her, and had already shown her teeth. But when that Queen became involved in difficulties, she won her friendship by helping her, first to destroy Silverius, as shall be related presently, and later to ruin John of Cappadocia, as I have told elsewhere. After that, she became more and more fearless, and casting all concealment aside, abandoned herself to the winds of desire.

There was a youth from Thrace in the house of Belisarius: Theodosius by name, and of the Eunomian heresy by descent. On the eve of his expedition to Libya, Belisarius baptized this boy in holy water and received him in his arms as a member henceforth of the family, welcoming him with his wife as their son, according to the Christian rite of adoption. And Antonina not only embraced Theodosius with reasonable fondness as her son by holy word, and thus cared for him, but soon, while her husband was away on his campaign, became wildly in love with him; and, out of her senses with this malady, shook off all fear and shame of God and man. She began by enjoying him surreptitiously, and ended by dallying with him in the presence of the men servants and waiting maids. For she was now possessed by passion and, openly overwhelmed with love, could see no hindrance to its consummation.

Once, in Carthage, Belisarius caught her in the very act, but allowed himself to be deceived by his wife. Finding the two in an underground room, he was very angry; but she said, showing no fear or attempt to keep anything hidden, "I came here with the boy to bury the most precious part of our plunder, where the Emperor will not discover it." So she said by way of excuse, and he dismissed the matter as if he believed her, even as he saw Theodosius's trousers belt somewhat unmodestly unfastened. For so bound by love for the woman was he, that he preferred to distrust the evidence of his own eyes.

As her folly progressed to an indescribable extent, those who saw what was going on kept silent, except one slave, Macedonia by name. When Belisarius was in Syracuse as the conqueror of Sicily, she made her master swear solemnly never to betray her to her mistress, and then told him the whole story, presenting s witnesses two slave boys attending the bed-chamber.

When he heard this, Belisarius ordered one of his guards to put Theodosius away; but the latter learned of this in time to flee to Ephesus. For most of the servants, inspired by the weakness of the husband's character, were more anxious to please his wife than to show loyalty to him, and so betrayed the order he had given. But Constantine, when he saw Belisarius's grief at what had befallen him, sympathized entirely except to comment, "I would have tried to kill the woman rather than the young man." Antonina heard of this, and hated him in secret. How malicious was her spite against him shall be shown; for she was a scorpion who could hide her sting.

But not long after this, by the enchantment either of philtres or of her caresses, she persuaded her husband that the charges against her were untrue. Without more ado he sent word to Theodosius to return, and promised to turn Macedonia and the two slave boys over to his wife. She first cruelly cut out their tongues, it is said, and then cut their bodies into little bits which were put into sacks and thrown into the sea. One of her slaves, Eugenius, who had already wrought the outrage on Silverius, helped her in this crime.

And it was not long after this that Belisarius was persuaded by his wife to kill Constantine. What happened at that time concerning Presidius and the daggers I have narrated in my previous books. For while Belisarius would have preferred to let Constantine alone, Antonina gave him no peace until his remark, which I have just repeated, was avenged. And as a result of this murder, much enmity was aroused against Belisarius in the hearts of the Emperor and all the most important of the Romans.

So matters progressed. But Theodosius said he was unable to return to Italy, where Belisarius and Antonina were now staying, unless Photius were put out of the way. For this Photius was the sort who would bite if anyone got the better of him in anything, and he had reason to be choked with indignation at Theodosius. Though he was the rightful son, he was utterly disregarded while the other grew in power and riches: they say that from the two palaces at Carthage and Ravenna Theodosius had taken plunder amounting to a hundred centenaries, as he alone had been given the management of these conquered properties.

But Antonina, when she learned of Theodosius's fear, never ceased laying snares for her son and planning deadly plots against his welfare, until he saw he would have to escape to Constantinople if he wished to live. Then Theodosius came to Italy and her. There they stayed in the satisfaction of their love, unhindered by the complaisant husband; and later she took them both to Constantinople. There Theodosius became so worried lest the affair became generally known, that he was at his wit's end. He saw it would be impossible to fool everybody, as the woman was no longer able to conceal her passion and indulge it secretly, but thought nothing of being in fact and in reputation an avowed adulteress.

Therefore he went back to Ephesus, and having his head shaved after the religious custom, became a monk. Whereupon Antonina, insane over her loss, exhibited her grief by donning mourning; and went around the house shrieking and wailing, lamenting even in the presence of her husband what a good friend she had lost, how faithful, how tender, how loving, how energetic! In the end, even her spouse was won over to join in her sorrow. And so the poor wretch wept too, calling for his beloved Theodosius. Later he even went to the Emperor and implored both him and the Empress, till they consented to summon Theodosius to return, as one who was and would always be a necessity in the house of Belisarius.

But Theodosius refused to leave his monastery, saying he was completely resolved to give himself forever to the cloistered life. This noble pronouncement, however, was not entirely sincere, for he was aware that as soon as Belisarius left Constantinople, it would be possible for him to come secretly to Antonina. Which, indeed, he did.

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Related:

The Winning Sophistry of Wives

The Secret History - by Pocopius of Caesarea

Procopius: The Secret History

CONTENTS

By the Historian (See bottom of this page)

1 - How the Great General Belisarius Was Hoodwinked by His Wife

2 - How Belated Jealousy Affected Belisarius's Military Judgment

3 - Showing the Danger of Interfering with a Woman's Intrigues

4 - How Theodora Humiliated the Conqueror of Africa and Italy

5 - How Theodora Tricked the General's Daughter

6 - Ignorance of the Emperor Justin, and How His Nephew Justinian Was the Virtual Ruler

7 - Outrages of the Blues

8 - Character and Appearance of Justinian

9 - How Theodora, Most Depraved of All Courtesans, Won His Love

10 - How Justinian Created a New Law Permitting Him to Marry a Courtesan

11 - How the Defender of the Faith Ruined His Subjects

12 - Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form

13 - Perceptive Affability and Piety of a Tyrant

14 - Justice for Sale

15 - How All Roman Citizens Became Slaves

16 - What Happened to Those Who Fell Out of Favor with Theodora

17 - How She Saved Five Hundred Harlots from a Life of Sin

18 - How Justinian Killed a Trillion People

19 - How He Seized All the Wealth of the Romans and Threw It Away

20 - Debasing of the Quaestorship

21 - The Sky Tax, and How Border Armies Were Forbidden to Punish Invading Barbarians

22 - Further Corruption in High Places

23 - How Landowners Were Ruined

24 - Unjust Treatment of the Soldiers

25 - How He Robbed His Own Officials

26 - How He Spoiled the Beauty of the Cities and Plundered the Poor

27 - How the Defender of the Faith Protected the Interests of the Christians

28 - His Violation of the Laws of the Romans and How Jews Were Fined for Eating Lamb

29 - Other Incidents Revealing Him as a Liar and a Hypocrite

30 - Further Innovations of Justinian and Theodora, and a Conclusion
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By the Historian
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In what I have written on the Roman wars up to the present point, the story was arranged in chronological order and as completely as the times then permitted. What I shall write now follows a different plan, supplementing the previous formal chronicle with a disclosure of what really happened throughout the Roman Empire. You see, it was not possible, during the life of certain persons, to write the truth of what they did, as a historian should. If I had, their hordes of spies would have found out about it, and they would have put me to a most horrible death. I could not even trust my nearest relatives. That is why I was compelled to hide the real explanation of many matters glossed over in my previous books.

These secrets it is now my duty to tell and reveal the remaining hidden matters and motives. Yet when I approach this different task, I find it hard indeed to have to stammer and retract what I have written before about the lives of Justinian and Theodora. Worse yet, it occurs to me that what I am now about to tell will seem neither probable nor plausible to future generations, especially as time flows on and my story becomes ancient history. I fear they may think me a writer of fiction, and even put me among the poets.

However, I have this much to cheer me, that my account will not be unendorsed by other testimony: so I shall not shrink from the duty of completing this work. For the men of today, who know best the truth of these matters, will be trustworthy witnesses to posterity of the accuracy of my evidence.

Still another thing for a long time deferred my passion to relieve myself of this untold tale. For I wondered if it might be prejudicial to future generations, and the wickedness of these deeds had not best remain unknown to later times: lest future tyrants, hearing, might emulate them. It is deplorably natural that most monarchs mimic the sins of their predecessors and are most readily disposed to turn to the evils of the past.

But, finally, I was again constrained to proceed with this history, for the reason that future tyrants may see also that those who thus err cannot avoid retribution in the end, since the persons of whom I write suffered that judgment. Furthermore, the disclosure of these actions and tempers will be published for all time, and in consequence others will perhaps feel less urge to transgress.

For who now would know of the unchastened life of Semiramis or the madness of Sardanapalus or Nero, if the record had not thus been written by men of their own times? Besides, even those who suffer similarly '-from later tyrants will not find this narrative quite unprofitable. For the miserable find comfort in the philosophy that not on them alone has evil fallen.

Accordingly, I begin the tale. First I shall reveal the folly of Belisarius, and then the depravity of Justinian and Theodora.

Advice to Married Couples - by Plutarch (46-120AD)

TO POLLIANUS AND EURYDICE WITH PLUTARCH'S BEST WISHES.

WHEN they were shutting you in your bridal chamber, the ancestral ritual was duly applied to you by the priestess of Demeter. I believe that now, if reason also were to take you in hand and join in the nuptial song, it would prove of some service, and would support the tune as prescribed. In the musical world they used to call one of the modes for the flute "the Horse-and-Mare", because, apparently, the strains in that key were provocative of union between those animals. Well, philosophy has many excellent sermons to give, but none more worthy of serious attention than that upon marriage. By it she exerts a spell upon those who come together as partners in life, and renders them gentle and tractable to each other. I have, therefore, taken the main points of the lessons which you have repeatedly heard, brought up as you have been in the company of Philosophy. I have arranged them in a series of brief comparisons to make them easier to remember, and am sending them as a present to you both. In doing so I pray that the Muses may graciously lend aid to Aphrodite, since, if it is their province to see that a lyre or a harp shall be in tune, it is no less so to provide that the music of the married home shall be harmonized by reason and philosophy. When people in olden times assigned a seat with Aphrodite to Hermes, it was because the pleasure of marriage stands in special need of reason; when to Persuasion and the Graces, it was in order that the married pair might obtain their wishes from each other by means of persuasion, and not by contention and strife

THE RULES

1. Solon bade the bride eat a piece of quince before coming to the bridegroom's arms--apparently an enigmatical suggestion that, as a first requirement, a pleasant and inviting impression should be gathered from an agreeable mouth and speech.

2. In Boeotia, after veiling the bride, they crown her with a wreath of thorny asparagus. As that plant yields the sweetest eating from among the roughest prickles, so a bride, if the groom does not run away in disgust because he finds her difficult and vexatious at first, will afford him a sweet and gentle com- panionship. One who shows no patience with the girl's first bickerings is as bad as those who let the ripe grapes go because once they were sour. Many a young bride is affected in the same way. First experiences disgust her with the bridegroom, and she makes as great a mistake as if, after enduring the sting of the bee, she were to abandon the honeycomb.

3. It is especially at the beginning that married people should beware of quarrel and friction. Let them note how vessels which have been mended will at first easily pull to pieces on the slightest occasion, but as time goes on and they become solid at the seams, it is as much as fire and iron can do to separate the parts.

4. Fire is readily kindled in chaff, dry rushes, or hare's fur, but quickly goes out unless it gets a further hold upon some- thing capable both of keeping it in and feeding it. So with that fierce blare of passion which is produced in the newly- married by physical enjoyment. You must not rely upon it nor expect it to last, unless it is built round the moral character, gets a hold upon your rational part, and so obtains a permanent vitality.

5. Doctoring the water is no doubt a quick and easy way of catching fish, but it renders them bad and uneatable. So when women work artificially upon their husbands with philtres and spells, and control them by the agency of pleasure, they have but crazy simpletons and dotards for their partners. While Circe derived no good from the men she had bewitched, and made no use of them when turned into swine and asses, she found the greatest pleasure in the rational companionship of the wise Odysseus.

6. A woman who is more desirous of ruling a foolish husband than of obeying a wise one, is like a traveller who would rather lead a blind man than follow one who possesses sight and knowledge.

7. Why should people disbelieve that Pasiphae, though consort to a King, fell in love with an ox, when they see that some women find a strict and continent husband wearisome, and prefer to live with one who is as much a mass of ungoverned sensuality as a dog or a goat?

8. When a rider is too weak or effeminate to vault upon a horse, he teaches the animal itself to bend its legs and crouch. In the same way some men who marry high-born or wealthy women, instead of improving themselves, put indignities upon their wives, in the belief that they will he more easily ruled when humbled. The proper course is, while using the rein, to main- tain the dignity of the wife, as one would the full height of the horse.

9. When the moon is at a distance from the sun, we see it bright and luminous. When it comes near him, it fades and is lost to view. With a properly conducted woman it is the con- trary. She should be most visible when with her husband; in his absence she should keep at home and out of sight.

10. Herodotus was wrong in saying that when a woman lays aside her tunic she lays aside her modesty. On the contrary, a chaste wife puts on modesty in its place. Between married persons the token of greatest regard is greatest modesty.

11. If two notes are taken in accord, the lower of the two is the dominant. So, though every action in a well-conducted house is performed by both parties in tune, it will reveal the husband's leadership and priority of choice.

12. The Sun vanquished the North Wind. When the wind endeavoured to take off the man's cloak by violence and blowing a gale, he only tightened his mantle the more and held it the closer. But when, after the wind, the sun became hot, the man began to grow warm. When at last he sweltered, he took off not only his cloak but his tunic. This parable applies to the generality of women. When their husbands take violent measures to do away with extravagant indulgence, they show fight and temper; but if you reason with them, they give it up peaceably and practise moderation.

13. Cato expelled from the Senate a man who had kissed his own wife in the presence of his daughter. This, perhaps, was too severe a step. But if--as is the case--it is unseemly to be fondling and kissing and embracing each other in company, it is surely more unseemly to be scolding and quarrelling in com- pany, and, while treating your love-passages as a sacred secret between you and your wife, to make an open display of fault- finding and reproach.

14. A mirror,1 though decorated with gold and precious stones, is of no use unless it shows you your form true to life. Similarly there is no advantage in a rich wife, if her conduct does not represent that of her husband and harmonize with it in character. If the reflection which it offers is glum when you are joyful, but wears a merry grin when you are gloomy and distressed, the mirror is faulty and bad. A wife is a poor thing and out of place if she is in the dumps when her husband is disposed for frolic or love-making, but is all fun and laughter when he is serious. In the former case she in disagreeable; in the latter, she slights you. Geometers tell us that lines and surfaces make no movement by themselves, but only in conjunc- tion with the bodies to which they belong. In the same way a woman should be free from peculiar states of mind of her own, but should act as the husband's partner in his earnestness and his jest, in his preoccupation and his laughter.

1 Made of polished bronze.

15. A man who dislikes to see his wife eating with him, teaches her to satisfy her appetite when she gets by herself. Similarly one who is never a merry companion to her, nor shares in her sport and laughter, teaches her to look for private pleasures apart from him.

16. When the Persian kings are dining or feasting, their legitimate wives sit at their side. But when they wish to amuse themselves or get tipsy, they send those wives away and summon their minstrel-women and concubines. The practice is a right one, at least to the extent that they do not permit their wives to take part in wanton and licentious scenes. So, if a private man, who lacks self-control or good-breeding in his pleasures, is guilty of a lapse with a common woman or a menial, the wife should not be indignant and resentful, but should reflect that, out of respect for her, he finds some other woman to share his riot and lasciviousness.

17. When kings are fond of music, they make many musicians; when of learning, learned men; when of athletics, gymnasts. So when the love of a husband is for the person, his wife will be all for dress; when for pleasure, she becomes lewd and wanton; when for goodness and virtue, she shows herself discreet and chaste.

18. When a Lacedaemonian girl was once asked whether she had already embraced a man, she answered, "No, indeed; but he has embraced me." Such, I believe, is the right attitude for a lady--not to shun or dislike caresses, when the husband begins them, nor yet to begin them of her own accord. The one course is bold and immodest, the other disdainful and unaffectionate.

19. The woman ought not to possess private friends, but to share those of the man. But first and greatest are the gods, and it is therefore right for the wife to reverence or acknowledge only those gods who are recognized by the husband. Her street-door should be kept shut to out-of-the-way forms of worship and alien superstitions. No deity finds gratification in ceremonies which a woman performs in secret and by stealth.

20. Plato holds that a community is in a state of blissful well-being when the expressions "mine" and "not mine" are scarcely ever heard, inasmuch as the citizens enjoy, as far as possible, the common use of everything worth considering. Much more ought such language to be abolished from the married state. In the same way, however, in which medical men tell us that a blow on the left side produces an answering sensation in the right, it is proper for a wife to sympathize with her husband's concerns and the husband with the wife's. In this way, just as ropes, when interwoven, lend each other strength, so, through each party reciprocating the other's goodwill, the partnership will be maintained by both combined. Nature blends us through the body in such a way as to take a portion from each, and by commingling produce an offspring common to both, so that neither can define or distinguish an "own" part from "another's". The same sort of partnership between married persons should assuredly exist in respect of money also. They should pour it all into a single fund, and blend it in such a way that they never think of one part as "own" and one as "another's", but treat it all as "own" and none of it as "another's". And as we call a mixture "wine", though it may contain a greater proportion of water, so the property of the house should be said to belong to the man, even though the wife may contribute the larger share.

21. Helen loved wealth, and Paris loved pleasure: Odysseus was wise, and Penelope discreet. Hence the union of the latter pair was happy and enviable, while that of the former brought upon Greeks and Asiatics an "Iliad of Woes".

22. When the Roman was admonished by his friends for having divorced a wife who was chaste, rich, and beautiful, he stretched out his shoe and remarked: "Yes, and this looks fine and new, but no one knows where it chafes me." The wife must not rely upon her dowry, her birth, or her beauty. The matters in which she touches her husband most closely are conversation, character, and companionship. Instead of making these harsh and vexatious day after day, she must render them compatible, soothing, and grateful. Physicians are more afraid of fevers which spring from vague causes gradually accumulating, than of those for which there is a great and manifest reason. So it is these little, continual, daily frictions between man and wife, which the world knows nothing of, that do most to create the rifts which ruin married life.

23. King Philip was once enamoured of a Thessalian woman who was charged with bewitching him. Olympias [Philip's wife] thereupon became eager to get this person into her power. When, upon presenting herself, she not only turned out to be a handsome woman, but spoke with considerable nobility and good sense, Olympias said: "Those calumnies are all nonsense! Your witchcraft lies in yourself." How irresistible a thing is a married and lawful wife, if, by treating everything--dowry, birth, philtres, the very girdle1 of Aphrodite--as lying in herself, she conquers affection by means of character and virtue!

1 Which contained "every charm: love, desire, and sweet converse" (Homer, Il. xiv. 214).

24. On another occasion, when a youthful courtier had married a handsome woman of bad repute, Olympias remarked, "The fellow has no judgement; otherwise he would not have married with his eyes." Marriage should not be made with tile eyes; neither should it with the fingers, as it is in the case of some, who reckon up the amount of the dower, instead of calculating the companionable quality, of the wife they are marrying.

25. To young men who are fond of looking at themselves in the mirror Socrates recommended that the ugly should correct their defects by virtue, while the handsome should avoid spoiling their beauty by vice. It is a good thing for the married woman also, while she is holding the mirror, to talk to herself, and, if she is plain, to ask, "And what if I show myself indiscreet?" if beautiful, "And what if I show myself discreet as well!" The plain woman may pride herself on being loved for her character, and the handsome woman on being loved more for her character then her beauty.

26. When the Sicilian despot sent Lysander's daughters a set of costly mantles and chains, he refused to accept them. "These bits of ornaments," said he, "will rather take from my daughters' beauty than set it off." Lysander, however, was anticipated by Sophocles in the lines:

Nay, 'twould not seem, poor fool, to beautify,
But to unbeautify, and prove thee wanton.

As Crates used to say, "Adornment is that which adorns," and that which adorns is that which adds to a woman's seemliness. This is not done by gold or jewels or scarlet, but by what- ever invests her with the badges of dignity, decorum, and modesty.

27. In sacrificing to Hera as goddess of marriage, the gall is not burned with the other portions of the sacrifice, but is taken out and thrown down at the side of the altar--an indirect injunction of the legislator that gall and anger should have no place in the married state. The austerity of the lady of the house, like the dryness of wine, should be wholesome and palatable, not bitter like aloes or unpleasant like a drug.

28. Xenocrates being somewhat harsh in character, though otherwise a high type of man, Plato recommended him to sacrifice to the Graces. Now I take it that a woman of strict morals stands in special need of the graces in dealing with her husband, so that--as Metrodorus used to say--she may live with him on pleasant terms and not "in a temper because she is chaste". A woman should no more forget to be amiable because she is faithful, than to be neat because she is thrifty. Decorum in a woman is rendered as disagreeable by harshness as frugality is by sluttishness.

29. A wife who is afraid to laugh and joke with her husband for fear of seeming bold and wanton, is as bad as the woman who, from fear of being thought to use ointments on her head, does not even oil it,1 and, to avoid seeming to rouge her face, does not even wash it. We find that when poets and orators avoid appealing to the vulgar by bad taste and affectation in respect of their diction, they practise every art to attract and stir the hearer with their matter, their treatment, and their moral quality. So the lady of the house, because she avoids and deprecates--as she is quite right to do--extravagant or meretricious demonstration, ought all the more to bring the graces of character and conduct into play in dealing with her husband, thus habituating him to proper ways, but in a pleasur- able manner. If, however, a wife shows herself strait-laced and rigidly austere, her husband must put the best face upon it. When Antipater required Phocion to perform an improper and degrading action, he answered, "I cannot serve you both as your friend and your toady." In the same way, when a woman is staid and strait-laced, our reflection should be, "The same woman cannot behave to me as both a wife and a mistress."

1 The use of oil to soften the hair was practically universal.

30. By a national custom the Egyptian women wore no shoes, so that they might keep at home all day. In the case of most women, to deprive them of gold-worked shoes, bangles, anklets, purple, and pearls, is to make them stay indoors.

31. Theano, in putting on her mantle, once showed a glimpse of her arm. Upon some one saying, "A beautiful forearm!" she retorted, "But not for the public!" A well-conducted woman will keep, not only her forearm, but her speech, from publicity. She will be as shy and cautious about her utterances to the outside world as if they were an exposure of her person, inasmuch as, when she talks, they are a revelation of feelings, character, and disposition.

32. Pheidias, in representing the Elean Aphrodite with her foot upon a tortoise, meant women to take it as a symbol of home-keeping and silence. A woman should talk either to, or through the medium of, her husband; nor should she resent it if, like a player on the clarinet, she finds a more impressive utterance through another tongue than through her own.

33. When rich or royal persons pay respect to a philosopher, they do honour both to themselves and to him. But when a philosopher pays court to rich people, he is not conferring distinction upon them, bur lowering his own. The same is the case with women. By submission to their husbands they win regard; by seeking to govern them they demean themselves worse than the men so governed. Meanwhile it is only right that the husband, in controlling the wife, should not be like an owner dealing with a chattel, but like the mind dealing with the body--sympathetic with the sympathy of organic union. It is possible to care for the body without being a slave to its pleasures and desires, and it is possible to rule a wife and yet do things to please and gratify her.

34. Compound objects are classified by philosophers as follows. In some the parts are distinct, as in a fleet or army. In some they are conjoined, as in a house or ship. In others they form an organic unity, as in all living creatures. We may say much the same of marriage. The marriage of love is the "organic unity"; the marriage for a dowry or for children is that of persons "conjoined"; marriage without sharing the same couch is that of persons "distinct", who may be said to dwell together, but not to live together. With persons marrying, there should be a mutual blending of bodies, means, friends, and relations, in the same way as, according to the scientists, when liquids are mixed, the mixture runs through the whole. When the Roman legislator forbade married couples to exchange presents, he did not mean that they should not impart to each other, but that they should look upon everything as joint property.

35. At Leptis in Africa it is a traditional custom for the bride, on the day after marriage, to send to the bridegroom's mother to borrow a pot. The latter refuses, saying she has none. The intention is that the bride may realize from the first the "step- mother" attitude of her mother-in-law, so that, if anything more disagreeable happens afterwards, she may not be vexed or irritated. The wife should understand this fact and apply treatment to its cause, which is, that the mother is jealous of her son's affections. There is but one treatment for this state of mind. While winning the special affection of her husband for herself, she must avoid detaching or lessening his affection for his mother.

36. Mothers appear to be more fond of their sons, because those sons are able to help them, and fathers of their daughters, because daughters need their help. Maybe also it is out of compliment to each other that both parties desire to be seen making much of that which is more akin to the other. This, perhaps, is a trait of no importance, but there is another which is charming. I mean, when the wife's respect is seen to incline rather to the husband's parents than to her own, and when, in case of anything troubling her, she refers it to them and conceals it from her own people. If you are thought to trust, you are trusted; if you are thought to love, you are loved.

37. The Greeks who accompanied Cyrus received the follow- ing order from their commanders: "If the enemy come shouting to the attack, await them in silence; if they come in silence, charge to meet them with a shout." When a husband has his fits of anger, if he raises his voice, a sensible wife keeps quiet; if he is silent, she soothes him by talking to him in a coaxing way.

38. Euripides is right in blaming those who have the lyre played to them at their wine. Music is more properly called in to cure anger and grief than to encourage further abandon- ment on the part of those who are taking their pleasure. So I would have you believe that it is a wrong principle to share the same bed for the sake of pleasure, and yet, when you are angry or fall out, to sleep apart. That is exactly the time to call in the Goddess of Love, who is the best physician for such cases. This is practically the reaching of the poet, when he makes Hera say:

And their tangled strife will I loosen,
When to their couch I bring them, to meet in love and in union.

39. At all times and everywhere a wife should avoid offending the husband, and a husband the wife; but especially should they beware of doing so when together at night. In the story, the wife, in the vexation of her throes, used to say to those who were putting her to bed: "How can this couch cure a trouble which befell me upon it." So quarrels, recriminations, and tempers which are begotten in the chamber are not easily got over in another place or at another time.

40. There appears to be a truth in Hermione's plea:

'Tis wicked women's visits have undone me.

This occurs in more than one way, but especially when connubial quarrels and jealousies offer to such women not only an open door, but an open ear. At such a time, therefore, should a sensible woman shut her ears, keep out of the way of slanderous whispers which add fuel to the fire, and be ready to apply the well-known saying of Philip. We are told that when his friends were trying to exasperate that monarch against the Greeks-- on the ground that, though he treated them well, they abused him--he remarked, "Well, and what, pray, if we treat them badly?" So, when the scandalizers say, "Your husband grieves you, in spite of all your affection and chastity," you should retort, "And what, pray, if I begin to hate and wrong him?"

41. A man caught sight of a slave who had run away some time before, and gave chase. When the slave was too quick, and took refuge in a mill, he observed, "And in what better place could I have wished to find you than where you are?''1 So let a woman who is declaring for a divorce through jealousy say to herself, "And where would my rival be more glad to see me? And what would she be more pleased to see me doing, than harbouring a grievance, at feud with my husband, and actually abandoning the house and the marriage-chamber?"

1 A common punishment for a slave was to put him to hard labour in turning the mill, in place of a horse or ass.

42. The Athenians observe three sacred ploughings; the first at Sciron, in memory of the oldest sowing of crops; the second in the Rharian district; and the third--known as the Buzygian festival--close to the Acropolis. More sacred than all of these is the connubial ploughing and sowing for the pro- creation of children. It is a happy expression of Sophocles, when he calls Aphrodite "fair-fruited Cytherea". Man and wife should therefore be especially scrupulous in this connexion, keeping pure from unholy and unlawful intercourse with others, and forbearing to sow where they desire no crop to grow, or, if it does, are ashamed of it and seek to conceal it.

43. When Gorgias the rhetorician once read to the Greeks at Olympia a discourse upon peace and harmony, Melanthius exclaimed, "Here is a man giving us advice about peace and harmony, when in private life he has failed to harmonize three people--himself, his wife, and his maidservant." For Gorgias, it appears, was enamoured, and his wife jealous, of the domestic [maidservant]. A man's house ought to be in tune before he offers to set in tune a state, a public meeting, or friends. The public is more likely to hear of offences against a wife than of offences committed by her.

44. They say that the cat is driven frantic by the smell of unguents. If it had been the case that women were provoked out of their senses by the same means, it would have been a monstrous thing for men not to abstain from unguents, and to let their wives suffer so cruelly for the sake of a trifling gratifica- tion of their own. Now since, though the husband's use of unguents does not so afflict them, his dealings with other women do, it is unjust to cause such vexation and distress to a wife for the sake of a little pleasure. On the contrary, husbands should come to their wives pure and untainted by other intercourse, just as they would approach bees, who are said to show disgust and hostility rewards any one who has been so engaged.

45. People never dress in bright clothes when approaching an elephant, nor in red when approaching a bull, since the animals in question are particularly infuriated by those colours. Of tigers it is said that, if you beat drums all around them, they go mad and tear themselves to pieces. Surely, then, inasmuch as some men cannot bear to see scarlet or purple clothes, and some are irritated at cymbals and tambourines, it is not asking too much for women to leave such things alone, and not harass or exasperate their husbands, but practise quietude and con- sideration in their society.

46. When Philip was once seizing upon a woman against her will, she said, "Let me go. All women are the same when you take away the light." While this applies well enough to adulterers and sensualists, it is particularly when the light is taken away that a wife should not be the same as any ordinary female. Her person may not be visible, but her modesty, chastity, decorum, and natural affection should make themselves palpable.

47. Plato used to recommend that respect should rather be paid by elderly men to the young, so that the latter might behave modestly to them in return. For, said he, "where old men lie shameless" the young acquire no modesty or scruple. A husband should bear this in mind, and show more respect to his wife than to any one else, since the nuptial chamber will prove to be her school of propriety or its opposite. The husband who indulges himself in certain pleasures, while warning her against the same, is as bad as the man who bids his wife fight on against an enemy to whom he has himself surrendered.

48. As to love of display, do you, Eurydice, read and endeavour to remember what Timoxena wrote to Aristylla. And you, Pollianus, must not expect your wife to refrain from showy extravagance, if she sees that you do not despise it in other matters, but that you take a pleasure in cups with gilding, rooms with painted walls, mules with decorated harness, and horses with neck-trappings. You cannot banish extravagance from the women's quarters when it has the free run of the men's. You are at the right age to cultivate philosophy. Adorn your character, therefore, by listening to careful reasoning and demonstration in improving company and conversation. Be like the bees. Gather valuable matter from every source. Carry it home in yourself, and share it with your wife by discussing it and making all the best principles agreeable and familiar to her. While

Thou unto her art father, and honoured mother, and brother,

it is no less a matter of pride to hear a wife say, "Husband, thou unto me art guide, philosopher, and teacher of the noblest and divinest lessons." It is studies of this kind that tend to keep a woman from foolish practices. She will be ashamed to be dancing, when she is learning geometry. She will lend no ear to the incantations of sorcery, when she is listening to those of Plato and Xenophon. When any one promises to fetch down the moon,1 she will laugh at the ignorance and silliness of women who believe such things; for she will possess a knowledge of astronomy, and will have heard how Aglaonice, the daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly, thoroughly understood eclipses of the full moon, how she knew beforehand the date at which it must be caught in the shadow, and how she thereby cheated the women into believing that she was fetching it down herself.

We are told that no woman produces a child without the participation of the man, though there are shapeless and fleshlike growths--called "millstones"--which form themselves spon- taneously from corrupted matter. We must beware of this occurring in women's minds. If they are not impregnated with sound doctrines by sharing in the culture of their husbands, they will of their own accord conceive many an ill-advised intention or irrational state of feeling.

As for you, Eurydice, above all things do your best to keep touch with the sayings of wise and good men, and to have continually in your mouth those utterances which you learned by heart in my school when a girl. By so doing, you will not only be a joy to your husband, but the admiration of other women, when they see how, at no expense, you can adorn yourself with so much distinction and dignity.

This rich woman's pearls, that foreign lady's silks, are not to be worn without paying a large price for them. But the orna- ments of Theano, of Cleobuline, of Gorgo the wife of Leonidas, of Timoclea the sister of Theagenes, of the Claudia of ancient history, and al Cornelia the daughter of Scipio, you may wear for nothing; and with this adornment your life may be as happy as it is distinguished. Sappho thought so much of her skill as a lyrist that she wrote-- addressing a wealthy woman--

When thou art dead, thou shalt lie with none to remember thy name:
For no portion hast thou in the roses Pierian. . . .

You will assuredly have more occasion to think highly and proudly of yourself, if you have a portion, not only in the roses, but also in the fruits, which the Muses bring as free gifts to those who prize culture and philosophy.

1 A frequent pretence of ancient witches.

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SOURCE:
The preceding text is part of Plutarch's Moralia or Moral Essays, more specifically, it was taken from Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. 1, translated by T. G. Tucker, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913, p. 96-112.

Certain minor modifications were made to the text to suit the medium and purpose used here. For example, page breaks and numbering were omitted, as well as marginal reference systems; footnotes were repositioned to fall under the numbered section in which they were used as opposed to the previous page bottom.

No attempt was made to Americanize or modernize the spelling, hopefully readers will have no trouble recognizing that, for example, connexion = connection.

This page was prepared by Spartacus, Editor of The Men's Tribune; repostings must include this link. Please report errors.

The History of Rome -- by Titus Livius (excerpts)

"At Rome, besides the general institutions, the censors prevailed on the magistrates to enact several particular laws for maintaining the frugality of women. This was the design of the Fannian, Licinian, and Oppian laws. We may see in Livy the great ferment the senate was in when the women insisted upon the revocation of the Oppian law. The abrogation of this law is fixed upon by Valerius Maximus as the period whence we may date the luxury of the Romans." -- Baron de Montesquieu

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Book 34: Close of the Macedonian War 34.1

While the State was preoccupied by serious wars, some hardly yet over and others threatening, an incident occurred which though unimportant in itself resulted in a violent party conflict. Two of the tribunes of the plebs, M. Fundanius and L. Valerius, had brought in a proposal to repeal the Oppian Law. This law had been made on the motion of M. Oppius, a tribune of the plebs, during the consulship of Q. Fabius and Tiberius Sempronius, when the strain of the Punic War was most severely felt. It forbade any woman to have in her possession more than half an ounce of gold, to wear a dress of various colours or to ride in a two-horsed vehicle within a mile of the City or of any Roman town unless she was going to take part in some religious function. The two Brutuses-M. Junius and T. Junius-both tribunes of the plebs, defended the law and declared that they would not allow it to be repealed; many of the nobility came forward to speak in favour of the repeal or against it; the Capitol was crowded with supporters and opponents of the proposal; the matrons could not be kept indoors either by the authority of the magistrates or the orders of their husbands or their own sense of propriety. They filled all the streets and blocked the approaches to the Forum; they implored the men who were on their way thither to allow the women to resume their former adornments now that the commonwealth was flourishing and private fortunes increasing every day. Their numbers were daily augmented by those who came up from the country towns. At last they ventured to approach the consuls and praetors and other magistrates with their demands. One of the consuls at all events was inexorably opposed to their request-M. Porcius Cato. He spoke as follows in defence of the law: 34.2

"If we had, each one of us, made it a rule to uphold the rights and authority of the husband in our own households we should not now have this trouble with the whole body of our women. As things are now our liberty of action, which has been checked and rendered powerless by female despotism at home, is actually crushed and trampled on here in the Forum, and because we were unable to withstand them individually we have now to dread their united strength. I used to think that it was a fabulous story which tells us that in a certain island the whole of the male sex was extirpated by a conspiracy amongst the women; there is no class of women from whom the gravest dangers may not arise, if once you allow intrigues, plots, secret cabals to go on. I can hardly make up my mind which is worse, the affair itself or the disastrous precedent set up. The latter concerns us as consuls and magistrates; the former has to do more with you, Quirites. Whether the measure before you is for the good of the commonwealth or not is for you to determine by your votes; this tumult amongst the women, whether a spontaneous movement or due to your instigation, M. Fundanius and L. Valerius, certainly points to failure on the part of the magistrates, but whether it reflects more on you tribunes or on the consuls I do not know. It brings the greater discredit on you if you have carried your tribunitian agitation so far as to create unrest among the women, but more disgrace upon us if we have to submit to laws being imposed upon us through fear of a secession on their part, as we had to do formerly on occasions of the secession of the plebs. It was not without a feeling of shame that I made my way into the Forum through a regular army of women. Had not my respect for the dignity and modesty of some amongst them, more than any consideration for them as a whole, restrained me from letting them be publicly rebuked by a consul, I should have said, 'What is this habit you have formed of running abroad and blocking the streets and accosting men who are strangers to you? Could you not each of you put the very same question to your husbands at home? Surely you do not make yourselves more attractive in public than in private, to other women's husbands more than to your own? If matrons were kept by their natural modesty within the limits of their rights, it would be most unbecoming for you to trouble yourselves even at home about the laws which may be passed or repealed here.' Our ancestors would have no woman transact even private business except through her guardian, they placed them under the tutelage of parents or brothers or husbands. We suffer them now to dabble in politics and mix themselves up with the business of the Forum and public debates and election contests. What are they doing now in the public roads and at the street corners but recommending to the plebs the proposal of their tribunes and voting for the repeal of the law. Give the reins to a headstrong nature, to a creature that has not been tamed, and then hope that they will themselves set bounds to their licence if you do not do it yourselves. This is the smallest of those restrictions which have been imposed upon women by ancestral custom or by laws, and which they submit to with such impatience. What they really want is unrestricted freedom, or to speak the truth, licence, and if they win on this occasion what is there that they will not attempt? 34.3

"Call to mind all the regulations respecting women by which our ancestors curbed their licence and made them obedient to their husbands, and yet in spite of all those restrictions you can scarcely hold them in. If you allow them to pull away these restraints and wrench them out one after another, and finally put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows they will become your masters. But surely, you say, what they object to is having a new restriction imposed upon them, they are not deprecating the assertion of a right but the infliction of a wrong. No, they are demanding the abrogation of a law which you enacted by your suffrages and which the practical experience of all these years has approved and justified. This they would have you repeal; that means that by rescinding this they would have you weaken all. No law is equally agreeable to everybody, the only question is whether it is beneficial on the whole and good for the majority. If everyone who feels himself personally aggrieved by a law is to destroy it and get rid of it, what is gained by the whole body of citizens making laws which those against whom they are enacted can in a short time repeal? I want, however, to learn the reason why these excited matrons have run out into the streets and scarcely keep away from the Forum and the Assembly. Is it that those taken prisoners by Hannibal-their fathers and husbands and children and brothers-may be ransomed? The republic is a long way from this misfortune, and may it ever remain so! Still, when this did happen, you refused to do so in spite of their dutiful entreaties. But, you may say, it is not dutiful affection and solicitude for those they love that has brought them together; they are going to welcome Mater Idaea on her way from Phrygian Pessinus. What pretext in the least degree respectable is put forward for this female insurrection? 'That we may shine,' they say, 'in gold and purple, that we may ride in carriages on festal and ordinary days alike, as though in triumph for having defeated and repealed a law after capturing and forcing from you your votes.' 34.4

"You have often heard me complain of the expensive habits of women and often, too, of those of men, not only private citizens but even magistrates, and I have often said that the community suffers from two opposite vices-avarice and luxury-pestilential diseases which have proved the ruin of all great empires. The brighter and better the fortunes of the republic become day by day, and the greater the growth of its dominion-and now we are penetrating into Greece and Asia, regions filled with everything that can tempt appetite or excite desire, and are even laying hands on the treasures of kings-so much the more do I dread the prospect of these things taking us captive rather than we them. It was a bad day for this City, believe me, when the statues were brought from Syracuse. I hear far too many people praising and admiring those which adorn Athens and Corinth and laughing at the clay images of our gods standing in front of their temples. I for my part prefer these gods who are propitious to us, and I trust that they will continue to be so as long as we allow them to remain in their present abodes.

In the days of our forefathers Pyrrhus attempted, through his ambassador Cineas, to tamper with the loyalty of women as well as men by means of bribes. The Law of Oppius in restraint of female extravagance had not then been passed, still not a single woman accepted a bribe. What do you think was the reason? The same reason which our forefathers had for not making any law on the subject; there was no extravagance to be restrained. Diseases must be recognised before remedies are applied, and so the passion for self-indulgence must be in existence before the laws which are to curb it. What called out the Licinian Law which restricted estates to 500 jugera except the keen desire of adding field to field? What led to the passing of the Cincian Law concerning presents and fees except the condition of the plebeians who had become tributaries and taxpayers to the senate? It is not therefore in the least surprising that neither the Oppian nor any other law was in those days required to set limits to the expensive habits of women when they refused to accept the gold and purple that was freely offered to them. If Cineas were to go in these days about the City with his gifts, he would find women standing in the streets quite ready to accept them.

There are some desires of which I cannot penetrate either the motive or the reason. That what is permitted to another should be forbidden to you may naturally create a feeling of shame or indignation, but when all are upon the same level as far as dress is concerned why should any one of you fear that you will not attract notice ? The very last things to be ashamed of are thriftiness and poverty, but this law relieves you of both since you do not possess what it forbids you to possess. The wealthy woman says, 'This levelling down is just what I do not tolerate. Why am I not to be admired and looked at for my gold and purple? Why is the poverty of others disguised under this appearance of law so that they may be thought to have possessed, had the law allowed it, what it was quite out of their power to possess?'

Do you want, Quirites, to plunge your wives into a rivalry of this nature, where the rich desire to have what no one else can afford, and the poor, that they may not be despised for their poverty, stretch their expenses beyond their means? Depend upon it, as soon as a woman begins to be ashamed of what she ought not to be ashamed of she will cease to feel shame at what she ought to be ashamed of. She who is in a position to do so will get what she wants with her own money, she who cannot do this will ask her husband. The husband is in a pitiable plight whether he yields or refuses; in the latter case he will see another giving what he refused to give. Now they are soliciting other women's husbands, and what is worse they are soliciting votes for the repeal of a law, and are getting them from some, against the interest of you and your property and your children. When once the law has ceased to fix a limit to your wife's expenses, you will never fix one. Do not imagine that things will be the same as they were before the law was made. It is safer for an evil-doer not to be prosecuted than for him to be tried and then acquitted, and luxury and extravagance would have been more tolerable had they never been interfered with than they will be now, just like wild beasts which have been irritated by their chains and then released. I give my vote against every attempt to repeal the law, and pray that all the gods may give your action a fortunate result." 34.5

After this the tribunes of the plebs who had announced their intention of vetoing the repeal spoke briefly to the same effect. Then L. Valerius made the following speech in defence of his proposal: .....

34.8
After these speeches in support of and against the law the women poured out into the streets the next day in much greater force and went in a body to the house of the two Brutuses, who were vetoing their colleagues' proposal, and beset all the doors, nor would they desist till the tribunes had abandoned their opposition. There was no doubt now that the tribes would be unanimous in rescinding the law. It was abrogated twenty years after it had been made....

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Related:

The Spirit of Laws – Baron de Montesquieu

De Officiius (excerpts), by Cicero

BOOK II. VI.

.... In what state of mind do we fancy Alexander of Pherae lived? We read in history that he dearly loved his wife Thebe; and yet, whenever he went from the banquet-hall to her in her chamber, he used to order a barbarian - one, too, tattooed like a Thracian, as the records state - to go before him with a drawn sword; and he used to send ahead some of his bodyguard to pry into the lady's caskets and to search and see whether some weapon were not concealed in her wardrobe. Unhappy man! To think a barbarian, a branded slave, more faithful than his own wife! Nor was he mistaken. For he was murdered by her own hand, because she suspected him of infidelity...

XVI. There are, in general, two classes of those who give largely: the one class is the lavish, the other the generous. The lavish are those who squander their money on public banquets, doles of meat among the people, gladiatorial shows, magnificent games, and wild-beast fights - vanities of which but a brief recollection will remain, or none at all. The generous, on the other hand, are those who employ their own means to ransom captives from brigands, or who assume their friends' debts or help in providing dowries for their daughters, or assist them in acquiring property or increasing what they have. And so I wonder what Theophrastus could have been thinking about when he wrote his book on "Wealth." It contains much that is fine; but his position is absurd, when he praises at great length the magnificent appointments of the popular games...

.... in the matter of this enormous waste and unlimited expenditure we are not very greatly astonished, and that, too, though by it no extreme need is relieved, no dignity is enhanced, and the very gratification of the populace is but for a brief, passing moment; such pleasure as it is, too, is confined to the most frivolous, and even in these the very memory of their enjoyment dies as soon as the moment of gratification is past." His conclusion, too, is excellent: "This sort of amusement pleases children, silly women, slaves, and the servile free; but a serious-minded man who weighs such matters with sound judgment cannot possibly approve of them." And yet I realize that in our country, even in the good old times, it had become a settled custom to expect magnificent entertainments from the very best men in their yearof aedileship.

Aristotle: On a Good Wife, from "Oikonomikos", c. 330 BCE

A good wife should be the mistress of her home, having under her care all that is within it, according to the rules we have laid down. She should allow none to enter without her husband's knowledge, dreading above all things the gossip of gadding women, which tends to poison the soul. She alone should have knowledge of what happens within. She must exercise control of the money spent on such festivities as her husband has approved---keeping, moreover, within the limit set by law upon expenditure, dress, and ornament---and remembering that beauty depends not on costliness of raiment. Nor does abundance of gold so conduce to the praise of a woman as self-control in all that she does. This, then, is the province over which a woman should be minded to bear an orderly rule; for it seems not fitting that a man should know all that passes within the house. But in all other matters, let it be her aim to obey her husband; giving no heed to public affairs, nor having any part in arranging the marriages of her children.

Rather, when the time shall come to give or receive in marriage sons or daughters, let her then hearken to her husband in all respects, and agreeing with him obey his wishes. It is fitting that a woman of a well-ordered life should consider that her husband's wishes are as laws appointed for her by divine will, along with the marriage state and the fortune she shares. If she endures them with patience and gentleness, she will rule her home with ease; otherwise, not so easily. Therefore not only when her husband is in prosperity and good report must she be in agreement with him, and to render him the service he wills, but also in times of adversity. If, through sickness or fault of judgement, his good fortune fails, then must she show her quality, encouraging him ever with words of cheer and yielding him obedience in all fitting ways---only let her do nothing base or unworthy. Let her refrain from all complaint, nor charge him with the wrong, but rather attribute everything of this kind to sickness or ignorance or accidental errors. Therefore, she will serve him more assiduously than if she had been a slave bought and taken home. For he has indeed bought her with a great price--with partnership in his life and in the procreation of children....Let her bethink herself how Alcestis would never have attained such renown nor Penelope have deserved all the high praises bestowed on her had not their husbands known adversity. To find partners in prosperity is easy enough; but only the best women are ready to share in adversity.

Such then is the pattern of the rules and ways of living which a good wife will observe. And the rules which a good husband will follow in treatment of his wife will be similar; seeing that she has entered his home like a suppliant from without, and is pledged to be the partner of his life and parenthood; and that the offspring she leaves behind her will bear the names of their parents, her name as well as his. And what could be more divine than this, or more desired by a man of sound mind, than to beget by a noble and honored wife children who shall be the most loyal supporters and discreet guardians of their parents in old age, and the preservers of the whole house? Rightly reared by father and mother, children will grow up virtuous, as those who have treated them piously and righteously deserve that they should; but parents who observe not these precepts will be losers thereby. For unless parents have given their children an example how to live, the children in their turn will be able to offer a fair and specious excuse for undutifulness. Such parents will risk being rejected by their offspring for their evil lives, and thus bring destruction upon their own heads. Therefore his wife's training should be the object of a man's unstinting care; that so far as is possible their children may spring from the noblest of stock. For it is only by this means that each mortal, successively produced, participates in immortality; and that petitions and prayers continue to be offered to ancestral gods. So that he who thinks lightly of this would seem also to be slighting the gods. For their sake then, in whose presence he offered sacrifice and led his wife home, promising to honor her far above all others saving his parents, a man must have care for wife and children.

Now a virtuous wife is best honored when she sees that her husband is faithful to her, and has no preference for another woman; but before all others loves and trusts her and holds her as his own. And so much the more will the woman seek to be what he accounts her. If she perceives that her husband's affection for her is faithful and righteous, she too will be faithful and righteous towards him. Therefore it befits not a man of sound mind to bestow his person promiscuously, or have random intercourse with women; for otherwise the base-born will share in the rights of his lawful children, and his wife will be robbed of her honor due, and shame be attached to his sons.

And it is fitting that he should approach his wife in honor, full of self-restraint and awe; and in his conversation with her, should use only the words of a right-minded man, suggesting only such acts as are themselves lawful and honorable. And if through ignorance she has done wrong, he should advise her of it in a courteous and modest manner. For of fear there are two kinds. The fear which virtuous and honorable sons feel towards their fathers, and loyal citizens towards right-minded rulers, has for its companions reverence and modesty; but the other kind, felt by slaves for masters and by subjects for despots who treat them with injustice and wrong, is associated with hostility and hatred. By choosing the better of all these alternatives a husband should secure the agreement, loyalty, and devotion of his wife, so that whether he himself is present or not, there may be no difference in her attitude towards him, since she realizes that they are alike guardians of the common interests; and so when he is away she may feel that to her no man is kinder or more virtuous or more truly hers than her own husband. And if the husband learns first to master himself, he will thereby become his wife's best guide in all the affairs of life, and will teach her to follow his example.

The Politics of Aristotle

The Spartan Women

Again, the license of the Lacedaemonian women defeats the intention of the Spartan constitution, and is adverse to the happiness of the state. For, a husband and wife being each a part of every family, the state may be considered as about equally divided into men and women; and, therefore, in those states in which the condition of the women is bad, half the city may be regarded as having no laws. And this is what has actually happened at Sparta; the legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of the men, but he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a state wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizen fall under the dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races, except the Celts and a few others who openly approve of male loves. The old mythologer would seem to have been right in uniting Ares and Aphrodite, for all warlike races are prone to the love either of men or of women. This was exemplified among the Spartans in the days of their greatness; many things were managed by their women. But what difference does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same. Even in regard to courage, which is of no use in daily life, and is needed only in war, the influence of the Lacedaemonian women has been most mischievous. The evil showed itself in the Theban invasion, when, unlike the women of other cities, they were utterly useless and caused more confusion than the enemy. This license of the Lacedaemonian women existed from the earliest times, and was only what might be expected. For, during the wars of the Lacedaemonians, first against the Argives, and afterwards against the Arcadians and Messenians, the men were long away from home, and, on the return of peace, they gave themselves into the legislator's hand, already prepared by the discipline of a soldier's life (in which there are many elements of virtue), to receive his enactments. But, when Lycurgus, as tradition says, wanted to bring the women under his laws, they resisted, and he gave up the attempt. These then are the causes of what then happened, and this defect in the constitution is clearly to be attributed to them. We are not, however, considering what is or is not to be excused, but what is right or wrong, and the disorder of the women, as I have already said, not only gives an air of indecorum to the constitution considered in itself, but tends in a measure to foster avarice.

The mention of avarice naturally suggests a criticism on the inequality of property. While some of the Spartan citizen have quite small properties, others have very large ones; hence the land has passed into the hands of a few. And this is due also to faulty laws; for, although the legislator rightly holds up to shame the sale or purchase of an inheritance, he allows anybody who likes to give or bequeath it. Yet both practices lead to the same result. And nearly two-fifths of the whole country are held by women; this is owing to the number of heiresses and to the large dowries which are customary. It would surely have been better to have given no dowries at all, or, if any, but small or moderate ones. As the law now stands, a man may bestow his heiress on any one whom he pleases, and, if he die intestate, the privilege of giving her away descends to his heir. Hence, although the country is able to maintain 1500 cavalry and 30,000 hoplites, the whole number of Spartan citizens fell below 1000. The result proves the faulty nature of their laws respecting property; for the city sank under a single defeat; the want of men was their ruin.
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Related:

”The Man-Woman” – by Hic Mulier, 1620

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"On this same issue, here is an abstract from the essay Rulers Ruled by Women: An Economic Analysis of the Rise and Fall of Women’s Rights in Ancient Sparta

ABSTRACT: Throughout most of history, women as a class have possessed relatively few formal rights. The women of ancient Sparta were a striking exception. Although they could not vote, Spartan women reportedly owned 40 percent of Sparta’s agricultural land and enjoyed other rights that were equally extraordinary. We offer a simple economic explanation for the Spartan anomaly. The defining moment for Sparta was its conquest of a neighboring land and people, which fundamentally changed the marginal products of Spartan men’s and Spartan women’s labor. To exploit the potential gains from a reallocation of labor – specifically, to provide the appropriate incentives and the proper human capital formation – men granted women property (and other) rights. Consistent with our explanation for the rise of women’s rights, when Sparta lost the conquered land several centuries later, the rights for women disappeared. Two conclusions emerge that may help explain why women’s rights have been so rare for most of history. First, in contrast to the rest of the world, the optimal (from the men’s perspective) division of labor among Spartans involved women in work that was not easily monitored by men. Second, the rights held by Spartan women may have been part of an unstable equilibrium, which contained the seeds of its own destruction.

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"The want of men was their ruin." -- Chateau Heartiste
.
"Ancient Sparta Showed That Women's Rights Are A Function Of The Economy" -- Return of Kings
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Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love -- by Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price)

If it is possible to live with a purpose, what should that purpose be? A purpose might be a guiding principle, a philosophy, or a value of sovereign importance that informs and directs our activities and thoughts. To have one is to live seriously — though not necessarily wisely — following some track, believing in a hub to the wheeling universe or a sea toward which we flow or an end before which all the hubbub of civilization subsides. What is your purpose, friend, or what should it be?

Perhaps most of us do not come to a clear conclusion in the matter, but this does not mean we have no purpose, only that we do not recognize it or admit it or even choose it for ourselves. In the unhappiest case nature simply takes its course, which is a turbid meandering through the swamps of desire. If life means nothing then only pleasure is worthwhile; or if life has meaning and we cannot get at it then still only enjoyment matters — such is the view of brutes and some sophisticated philosophers. It slips into the unconscious by default when we hold no other, but we are reluctant to entertain it and will rather, if we think about it, take as our purpose support of family, search for beauty, improvement of society, fame, self-expression, development of talent, and so on. But it might be fair to say that apart from these or beneath these the fundamental purpose of many of us is the search for love, particularly romantic love.

The love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man is often the floor to which people fall after the collapse of other dreams. It is held to be solid when nothing else is, and though it frequently gives way and dumps them into a basement of despair, it still enjoys a reputation of dependability. No matter that this reputation is illogical — it still flourishes and will continue to flourish regardless of what is said in any book. Love, or possibly the myth of love, is the first, last, and sometimes the only refuge of uncomprehending humanity. What else makes our hearts beat so fast? What else makes us swoon with feeling? What else renders us so intensely alive and aching? The search for love — the sublime, the nebulous, the consuming — remains sacred in a world that increasingly despises the sacred. When the heroic and the transcendental are but memories, when religious institutions fill up with bureaucrats and social scientists, when nobody believes there is a sky beyond the ceiling, then there seems no other escape from the prison of self than the abandon of love. With a gray age of spiritual deadness upon us, we love, or beg for love, or grieve for love. We have nothing higher to live for.

Indeed, many take it on faith that romantic love is the highest thing to live for. Popular literature, movies, art, and music tirelessly celebrate it as the one truth accessible to all. Such love obliterates reason, as poets have long sweetly lamented, and this is part of its charm and power, because we want to be swept up and spirited out of our calculating selves. "Want" is the key word, for in the spiritual void of modern life the wanting of love becomes increasingly indistinguishable from love itself. So powerful, so insistent is it that we seldom notice that the gratification is rare and the craving relentless. Love is mostly in anticipation; it is an agony of anticipation; it is an ache for a completion not found in the dreary round of mundane routine. That we never seem to possess it in its imagined fullness does not deter us. It hurts so bad that it must be good.

Practically nobody questions the supremacy of romantic love, which is good enough reason to do a little poking around the foundations of its pedestal. Who is entirely satisfied with the romance in his or her life? Who has found the sublime rapture previously imagined? And if one has actually found such a thing, does it last, or does it not rather change and decline from the peak of ecstasy? And if it declines what becomes of one's purpose in life? If a purpose is achieved it is no longer a purpose; it can no longer guide or sustain us. Does one taste of nectar satisfy us forever?

When we tire of crass, material goals we may go searching for love instead of, say, religious insight, because love seems both more accessible and more urgent, and because so much of institutional religion in our time has degenerated into insipid humanism. Some claim refuge here but many more, longing for authentic and moving experience, turn to the vision of the "lover," that source of wonder, joy, and transcendence, who, it is thought, must be pursued and if captured perfected and if perfected then enjoyed forever — or until some other lover lights up the horizon. Love is its own justification, especially for the young who have no other inspiration or no career or responsibilities to dull themselves with as their plodding elders do. Longing bursts through this one channel that seems open, dizzily insisting that the life of unreflecting passion is the highest they can aspire to. They do not reason, but fall. Their elders do reason — obsessively — but fall all the same, thereby admitting that, with all their thought and experience, they find, when driven to extremity, they have nothing but love to live for.

This is not to say that such a surrender must be bad, only that it happens out of instinct and uninformed passion. Love is sweet and it is our nature to give way. But why do we worship it so ardently and why do we break off our search for fulfillment here? Perhaps because we see no other gods. Yet if love is the highest thing to live for then this is a hopeless universe, because we should see in a calm hour that Cupid's arrows not only thrill us but make us bleed.

"Man Kills Estranged Lover, Then Self." "Wife Stabs Husband in Domestic Quarrel." "Love Triangle Leads To Shooting." So read the headlines with depressing regularity. The stories behind these are only the most shocking of countless tales of passion, but they do forcefully suggest that romantic love is not always a blessing. One might object that hate, not love, spawns such tragedies, but where has such hate come from if not from a prior attachment now broken? We should know from experience how easily what we call love can turn to bitterness, jealousy, and malice, and though we protest that this is not the fault of love, we ought to notice that where one passion arises another is likely to follow. Passions are unreliable, volatile, dangerous, and a poor foundation for happiness.

Divorces, suicides, dissipation, violence, depravity, fanaticism, and other miseries great and small follow from passion, and yet passion is still, in the public mind, considered commendable, a mark of vigor and liveliness. Though everybody will admit that passion gone awry is dangerous, few realize that passion is by its nature likely to go awry. Romantic love is a chancy passion that may result in the opposite of what is desired. It may have happy consequences, too — else it would not have so many votaries — but it raises the stakes in the gamble of life and makes us more vulnerable both to our own weaknesses and to unpredictable fortune. As most of us count the joys of successful love (however we define it) worth the pain involved in its pursuit, we must learn to step lightly and with intelligence. We believe, with some reason, that love can ennoble and redeem us, and call forth our purest energies, but we are slower to see that when the lamp of love flickers out, as it tragically tends to do, we might lose our way in a fearful labyrinth of suffering.

Granted that few will shun the pursuit of romance out of fear of unhappy consequences, what can be done to ameliorate those consequences? If we really have nothing higher to live for, nothing to fall back on, the lugubrious truth is that nothing much can be done to ameliorate them, given the volatile nature of human affections, so it would be wise to make sure there really is no superior, sustaining ideal before committing ourselves exclusively to the chase.

Buddhism, of course, teaches such an ideal, which is nothing less than deliverance from all sorrow, called Nibbana. While worldly joys are mutable and fleeting, Nibbana is established, sorrowless, stainless, and secure. While worldly pains are piercing, unpredictable, and unavoidable, Nibbana is altogether free from pain. It is the end of suffering, the supreme refuge, the ultimate emancipation. The Buddha himself applied many terms of praise to it while recognizing their essential inadequacy. Nibbana cannot be grasped by language or concept, but it can be known and realized by one who makes the right efforts. This is a critical point.

Nibbana is not something that happens to us through an external agency; rather it is something that we ourselves may achieve. The Buddha certainly never would have troubled himself to teach had he not understood that his own realization was not fortuitous but rightly won and that those who followed his instructions could win realization for themselves. That understanding, passed down, has sustained the Buddhist religion to the present day. The diligent are not powerless. Suffering can be overcome.

Still, knowing ourselves to be sunk in confusion and beset by myriad defilements, we might regard Nibbana as too remote to do us much good here and now. We persist in seeing an unbridgeable chasm between saints and ordinary people like ourselves. We think practically everybody is like us (or worse) while maybe there are one or two genuine saints in the world, they presumably having just been born in that condition or with the exceptional good luck to get themselves elevated — who knows how? Yet the human condition is not, according to Buddhism, a fixed sentence to this or that level of wisdom and virtue. Beings are living at all stages of attainment, and they do not stay in the same place. They rise through their own good efforts, and decline through their own negligence in the endless action and reaction of intentional deeds (kamma) and results of deeds (kamma-vipaka).

The Buddha did not teach the Dhamma for the entertainment of those already perfected; he taught it for the benefit of fallible people like us who were struggling to avoid pain and make sense of the world. Even to those who came to him with no intention to scale high spiritual summits he imparted the progressive training of giving, morality and mental development. Why? Because there is always scope for improvement and because the human alternatives are not limited to holy wisdom or cloddish ignorance. Suffering lessens and happiness increases when we make an effort to follow the Noble Eightfold Path, whatever our present condition.

In the classic formula, the Dhamma is "directly visible, timeless, calling one to come and see, leading onwards, to be personally realized by the wise." Perhaps we cannot see Nibbana resplendent on the horizon, but we can certainly make out the ground beneath our feet; we can know when we draw a joyful breath or put behind us an old sorrow or refrain from a vicious act or compose an agitated mind. The Dhamma confers benefits here and now as well as in the future. Is there not satisfaction in performing a good deed with a clear mind? Is there not uplift in a moment of quiet contemplation saved from the tumult of the day? The Dhamma lightens our burdens in the present and gives us grounds for hope.

What then does this have to do with the problems of love? Simply this. The Dhamma puts the delights and torments of love into perspective, so that we can break the illusion of love as the highest of aspirations and most essential of desires. Henry Thoreau wrote (when young): "The only remedy for love is to love more." We might amend this to say: The only remedy for love is to love better. The understanding and the practice of the Dhamma do not destroy our capacity to love or enjoy love — far from it. The Dhamma purges the grasping, selfish qualities from our love and makes it purer and nobler.

As we come to understand through personal experience the rightness and goodness of the path of Dhamma, we may discover — slowly or suddenly — that the consuming passions we previously thought to be the only reasons for our existence are really not so, and that something of wondrous value overarches them — indistinct as yet but flashing out now and again from the clouds of possibility. What do our heaving emotions matter compared with that? When we lean hard, out of passion, we will fall hard — such is the nature of attachment. But when we do not lean, when instead we stand upright with an eye to the heights, then the love we bestow flows out of us without weakening us, like a superabundance of vigor. This is metta — loving-kindness devoid of selfishness. It becomes purer to the extent we realize it is not the purest; it becomes happier to the extent we realize it is not the happiest. Nibbana surpasses all.

If, through our own ripening knowledge, we appreciate that our ultimate and highest purpose should be Nibbana, the absolute end of sorrow, then all goals beneath that are cast in a new light. When we have something to live for that is higher than fame, honor, friendship, or health — higher even than love — we can never be utterly impoverished or ruined. We are in fact in a much better position to enjoy whatever may be achieved in worldly life, because we no longer depend solely on changeable circumstances for our happiness.
Love cools, friendships wane, calamities carry off the good and the beautiful. Who can deny it? If we are to overcome despair and grief we must not invest ourselves obsessively in what is perishable. We need to keep our minds, and consequently our actions, as free as possible from craving and attendant defilements like covetousness and possessiveness:

Our actions are all led by the mind; 

mind is their master, mind is their maker. 

If one acts or speaks with a defiled state of mind, 

then suffering follows like the cart-wheel 

that follows the foot of the ox. 

Our actions are all led by the mind; 

mind is their master, mind is their maker. 

If one acts or speaks with a pure state of mind, 

then happiness follows like a shadow

 that remains behind without departing.

— Dhammapada vv. 1, 2

While nobody can cut off craving simply by an act of will, we can certainly loosen its frightful grip on us by following the path and paying attention to the ultimate deliverance that shines at its end.

Love is never the poorer for being accompanied by wisdom. It is not harmed by being deprived of a crown. The agonies we endure and inflict in the name of love come from making love bear too heavy a weight. While we are in the world and engaged in the life of a householder we will naturally form attachments to family, job, friends, and lovers, but the suffering produced from these attachments will vary according to our wisdom and maturity. If we see nothing higher at all and abandon ourselves to the lottery of gaining and losing, we will surely suffer great pain, but if we keep the ideals of the Dhamma before us we will gain a measure of insulation against worldly inclemencies.

According to Buddhism, everything that has the nature of arising has the nature of ceasing, so it is well to place our greatest faith in Nibbana, which, being beyond all concepts and limits, does not "arise," and thus does not fluctuate with the teetering universe. An independent mind, intent on deliverance, is not a cold, unfeeling mind, but a mind whose love is uncalculated, beneficent, free — and empty of the furious I want of ego. If we don't live for love we won't die for it either. If the windows of our mind are open to the streaming light of Dhamma then that light will bathe our thoughts and actions and distinguish the skillful from the foolish.

Even without understanding of the Dhamma most of us will distinguish in theory between love and infatuation. We think of infatuation as capricious, irresponsible, and shallow, and true love as mature, serious, and steady — though in practice it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. At least we recognize some advantage to clear sight and reflection, and this recognition grows sharper with actual experience of the Dhamma. We become less likely to throw ourselves at the feet of the adored object and more likely to stand erect, honest, and mindful, ready to meet our fortune with bravery. To a world that knows nothing loftier than the convulsions of craving, this may seem a loss, but to one who truly experiences the refreshment of wisdom there comes no narrowness but rather a loosening of the bonds of fear and selfishness. One can love without compulsion, out of free will. How gratifying when affection is given, or received, without a bill for services rendered!

Even under promising circumstances there is no guarantee that love will be returned in equal measure, or that it will last long, or that it will provide unalloyed joy. When we depend on it entirely for our happiness we must dwell in the shadow of pain, however bright our amorous interludes. What if we should lose our heart's support tomorrow? We're okay as long as we have each other, we assure ourselves dreamily. But we will not have each other long. Quarrels, time, distance, changes, or finally death dissolve all unions of friends, lovers, and relatives, plunging the unwary into despair and meaninglessness; and if we have no wisdom we too may go creeping about the lonely streets with our eyes staring hungrily into other eyes and seeing the same hunger there.

But in the way of the Buddha there is relief from distress and exile. In wisdom there is security. Because love is fragile and temporary it cannot protect us forever, but if we relax our grip it may bloom even better, allowing us to give and receive without encumbrance, frenzy, or fear, offering to each other our strength instead of our weakness.

In a sense the practice of Dhamma is like gradually filling the abyss of ignorance with knowledge until that terrible vacuum is appeased and neutralized and the heart no more cries for unknown succor. The perfected one, clinging to nothing here or hereafter, asks nothing and requires nothing, so he is wholly free. His loving-kindness is just the over-measure, the overflowing of his goodness quite purified of the need, the visceral wanting and the vacillation of ordinary attachment.

While we cannot all at once purify our sentiments of their dross, we can raise the aim of our thought and conduct, and reflect on — indeed, contemplate — the virtues of the Buddha and the noble ones who are free from taint. Their achievement is an image to set before our inner eye, something higher to live for, within and beyond the motions of our conventional life. No good thing prospers in ignorance. The more we understand this flawed universe the more skillfully we can live, and the happier we will be. We love best when we do not love out of desperation.

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About the Author

Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price) is an American Buddhist monk from Louisville, Kentucky. In lay life a writer and an actor, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk at Wat Mahadhatu in Bangkok in early 1987. He has spent time in Thailand and Sri Lanka, and currently resides in the United States.

"Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love", by Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price). Access to Insight, 16 June 2011, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/price/bl124.html . Retrieved on 29 December 2012.

Buddha - from "Selected Writings of Nichiren"

- Women are messengers from hell. They cut off the seeds of Buddhahood. They have the faces of bodhisattvas, but their hearts are like demons. Women can no more attain Buddhahood than can a dried up seed sprout.

- The course of a river and a woman's mind both wander. Water is malleable, it turns here and there when rocks and mountains block its path. Women are like this. They are inconstant as water. Although they know what is right, when they run into the strong will of a man, they are checked and turn in bad directions. The right fades like a line drawn on the water. Women's nature is unsteady: though they see what they should be, they soon become what they should not be. Buddhahood is founded on integrity. Therefore, women, who are easily swayed, cannot become Buddhas. Women have the "five obstacles" (inability to become anything great) and the "three followings" (follows first the father, then the husband, then the son). Thus in one sutra it is written: "Even should the eyes of all the buddhas of the three worlds fall to the earth, women cannot become Buddha." Another text says: "Even if you can capture the clear wind, you can never capture the mind of a woman."

- The passions of all the men of the three thousand worlds and the hindrances to the salvation of one woman are comparably immeasurable.

- Among the three pleasures of Yung Ch'i-ch'i (in "Tales of Chuang Tzu") was the pleasure of not being born as a woman. He also named the pleasure of not being reborn in heaven as a woman.

From the Buddha's Little Known "Ultimate Extinction of the Dharma Sutra"

"When the Dharma is about to disappear, women will become vigorous and will at all times do deeds of virtue. Men will grow lax and will no longer speak the Dharma."

"When my Dharma disappears it will be just like an oil lamp which flares brightly for an instant just before it goes out. After this time it is difficult to speak with certainty of what will follow."

"Good persons will be hard to find; at most there will be one or two. Men will die younger, and women will live longer."

Buddha - From "The Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva" (Commentary by Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua - in America)

Sutra:

Buddha: "If there are women who detest the body of a woman, and who full-heartedly make offerings to Earth Store Bodhisattva's image, whether the image be a painting or made of earth, stone, lacquerware, brass, iron, or some other material, and if they do so day after day without fail, using flowers, incense, food, drink, clothing, colored silks, banners, money, jewels, and other items as offerings, when the female retribution body of those good women is exhausted, for hundreds of thousands of aeons they will never again be born in the worlds where there are women, much less be one, unless it be through the strength of their compassionate vows to liberate living beings. From the power of the meritorious virtues resulting from these offerings to Earth Store Bodhisattva, they will not receive the bodies of women throughout hundreds of thousands of tens of thousands of aeons.


Commentary:

Do not think that being a woman is a good thing, for being a woman involves a great deal of trouble. There are women who do not like it and always wonder why they have to be women; they want to learn what they can do about it. Through worship of Earth Store Bodhisattva these questions can be resolved.

What is the trouble involved in being a woman? Because there are people who might like to investigate this further, I will go into a bit more detail. You should not think of this as an attempt to cause women to dislike their state and leave home. If that occurred then there might be even more problems for me to deal with.

There are Five Obstructions and Ten Evils encountered by women. First we will discuss the Five Obstructions. The first is that women are not able to become the Great Brahma Lord because that position is accomplished through purity, and the body of a woman has a great many impurities. Second, women cannot become Sakra. An astute student may object that earlier we discussed the thirty-three women who became lords of the heavens. This objection is a valid one, but it should be realized that upon reaching the heavens their bodies became male, because only males can be lords of the heavens. Although Sakra has some desire remaining, that desire is quite light; women, on the other hand, are extremely libidinous and consequently cannot become Sakra.

Third, women cannot become demon kings. This is not too bad. They cannot attain this position because demons are extremely hard, solid, and firm, while women are extremely soft and weak. As soon as anything unusual comes up they are at a loss and have to seek help. Fourth, beings cannot be wise wheel-turning kings - the gold, silver, copper, and iron wheel-turning kings - as long as they have female bodies. Wise kings have hearts of great compassion and kindness; they teach people to maintain the Five Precepts and the Ten Good Deeds. Whenever women see something good occur to others, they become jealous, and this keeps them from having great compassion. Because of this basic problem, they cannot become Buddhas. Buddhas have ten thousand virtues; women have many evils. They are jealous and obstructive, and their hearts are about the size of a sesame seed.

If, however, women are able to rid themselves of jealousy, desire, weakness, defilement, and of all evils, they may become men, and so theirs is not a hopeless plight. There is, for example, the case of the dragon king's daughter. When Sariputra said that she could not become a Buddha, she took a precious gem, her most valuable and cherished possession, and offered it to the Buddha, who accepted it. She then asked Sariputra if the Buddha's acceptance of her offering was fast, and he replied that, indeed, it had been quick. "I shall become a Buddha that quickly," she said and then she became a Buddha. This is proof that women's lot is not hopeless. All they must do is resolve to cultivate courageously and they too can become Buddhas.

There are also Ten Evils that pertain to women. First, at their birth their parents are displeased. Although it is not always the case that parents are displeased at the birth of a daughter, in most societies this is the case, and a daughter starts out life by making a bad impression on her parents.

The second evil is that raising daughters is not a very interesting task. The third is that women are always afraid of people. Boys are not usually afraid, but girls almost always are. The fourth evil connected with women is that their parents undergo a great deal of worry about their daughters' marriage. In America this is not a major matter, but in most other countries parents have to give a great deal of consideration to finding good husbands for their daughters.

Once girls grow up, the fifth of the Ten Evils occurs, when they have to leave their parents alone. The sixth comes after they have been married and are in constant fear of their husbands. When a husband likes something, they are pleased, and when he is angry, they cower in terror. The seventh evil of women is the difficulty and fear of giving birth.

The eighth difficulty is that no matter what they do or say, the report gets back to their parents that they are not good. Although the good remains, it is a goodness that does not influence their parents. The ninth is that they are always controlled by their husbands and are subject to many restrictions, which, if broken, can lead to divorce.

The above nine evils apply to women in their youth. They are old when the tenth arrives and their own children and grandchildren slight them. As the proverb says, "To be old and not yet dead is to be a thief." These are only a few of the many problems involved with being a woman. To explain all of them in detail would be an unending task.