some evidence that they allowed men to take two wives each (e.g., Socrates and Euripides).[1] Possibly the public necessities also forced them to think of emancipating women,[2] for secluded wives could hardly take the initiative in each a movement. Very strangely the initiative has been ascribed to the courtesans. That there was such a movement is best proved by the ridicule which Aristophanes poured out on it in his Lysistrata; either somebody went so far as to propose community of women or Aristophanes meant to affirm that emancipation would lead to that. In his Woman's Parliament he developed the farcical element in such a plan; evidently he regarded everything as mere suggestion for his fun-making. In his Thesmophoria-festival he took up the defense of women against utterances in Euripides's Hippolytus. Hippolytus is a woman-hater and celibate, but Hera, enraged at such rebellion against love, inspires a passion for him in his stepmother, Phædra. The chorus develops the idea that love is a mighty catastrophe for joy or ill, and that Hera allows no contempt for it; love maddens the hearts and deludes the senses of all whom it attacks. The conception is that of an erotic passion. The relationship of the two does not enter into the tragedy at all, but only that a wife may fall into such a passion and be torn between it and fidelity to her husband. The result is torment for Hippolytus, and he vents his rage on women. Why did Zeus ever create them to man's sorrow on earth? They are a curse. If more men were wanted they should have been bought. The father gives his daughter a dowry to get rid of her, and then she costs her husband heavily for dress, etc. He puts up with her
