priestly dress, together with the leaf-shaped instrument in her hand (probably the instrument used at lustrations), seem to portray her as Hera Teleia, the protecting goddess of marriage, in the act of examining and blessing the bridal bath. The third scene of the picture is placed at the entrance of the bride's house. The bridegroom, crowned with vine branches, is sitting on the threshold, as if listening impatiently for the close of the ceremony inside the house. In front of him is a group of three maidens, one of whom seems to be making an offering at a portable altar, while the other two begin the hymenaeus to the accompaniment of the cithara." With the completion of the marriage ceremonies, the maiden has passed from the _gynaeconitis_ of her father to that of her husband; but, though still under masculine control, she is absolute mistress of her limited sphere; yet she is expected to refrain from manifesting interest in the public affairs of her husband and to confine her attention to her domestic duties. "Good women must abide within the house; Those whom we meet abroad are nothing worth," writes the poet; and this couplet expresses the Athenian husband's idea of the wife's proper sphere of activity. His life is essentially an outdoor one. The market place, a the law courts, the numerous colonnades, are the centres of his activity, where he passes his time in attending to business, in discussing politics, in telling or hearing some new thing. His recreations consist in visiting the _palaestrae_ or the _gymnasia_, the clubhouses of ancient Greece, and in participating with his chosen friends in banquets at which beautiful flute players and cultivated hetaerae afford pastime and amusement. He passes but little time at home. Meanwhile, the wife superintends the slaves and assigns them their several duties; she looks after the stores, utensils, and furnishings of the household; she presides over the kitchen; she nurses the sick; and, above all, she devotes her attention to the careful rearing of the children, whose prattle breaks the otherwise monotonous existence of the women's apartments. Occasionally, she visits her friends, or receives them in her house; but the gathering of women was discouraged by the husbands, who believed the effect of gossip to be matrimonial discontent.