than if she had sold herself permanently or given herself away. "Nothing in his home experience had prepared a Greek to see a respectable woman come and go in liberty, without veil and without escort, carrying a burden on her shoulder instead of on her head, like a man, running about the market, keeping shop, while her husband or father was shut up at home, weaving fabrics, mixing potter's clay, and turning the potter's wheel or working at his trade. It was on easy inference that the man was a slave and the wife mistress of the family."[1] Accordingly, as soon as a Greek dynasty was seated on the throne, we find that Ptolemy IV (221-205 B.C.) made an ordinance which restrained Egyptian married women by Greek law; gifts and contracts between man and wife ceased, and the wife needed the authorization of her husband for her acts.[2] Under Mohammedanism in Egypt we find the mores completely reversed. The Roman conquest and christianization acted to remold Egyptian mores as to the status of women, a change which may have been brought about before Mohammedanism came in. All the conquerors were antagonistic to the Egyptian mores in regard to this matter, and they favored the change, which was in the interest of men.
In Homer the relations of young unmarried persons is free and unconventional, although there is a code of propriety. Wives were bought and the bargain is very purely commercial in motive; fathers were also moved by political and dynastic motives. The purchase contract and the formal ceremony distinguished the status-wife from the concubine; and there were also slaves and captives who were at their lords' mercy. The concubine or slave, who had no status, was chosen for love. "When the chief wife was also the loved wife, affection was very
