In the peaceful atmosphere of the home, the Athenian gentlewoman was expected to live an irreproachable life. Infidelity on the part of the husband was regarded as a venial office, but the wife who violated her marriage vows was punished with the most terrible disgrace. Should she marry again, the man who ventured to wed her was disfranchised. She was to all intents and purposes an outcast from society. If she appeared in a temple, she might be subjected to any indignity short of death. Furthermore, a man could divorce his wife on the slightest pretext; while the wife, to obtain a divorce, was compelled to lodge with the archon a complaint against her husband and a prayer for the return of her dowry, and in the ensuing process she was subjected to many delays and inconveniences. Then, as she was still a minor in the eyes of the law, a wife who had left her husband was obliged to return to a state of tutelage under her father or brother; and many a suffering wife endured in silence neglect or ill usage rather than thus return to her father's control. Yet many a high-spirited woman revolted against the infidelities of her husband. The saddest incident of this marital inequality that we find in Greek literature is the story of Alcibiades's wife, Hipparete, and her case shows how difficult it was for a wife to assert her rights. Hipparete's early death leaves on the reader the impression that her heart was broken by her brilliant husband's inconstancy and brutality. "Hipparete," writes Plutarch, "was a virtuous and dutiful wife, but at last growing impatient because of the outrages done to her by her husband's continual entertaining of hetaerae, strangers as well as Athenians, she departed from him and retired to her brother's house. Alcibiades seemed not at all concerned at this, and lived on still in the same luxury; but the law required that she should deliver to the archon, in person, and not by proxy, the instrument by which she claimed a divorce; and when, in obedience thereto, she presented herself before the archon to perform this, Alcibiades came in, caught her up, and carried her home through the market place, no one daring to oppose him or to take her from him. She continued with him till her death, which happened not long after, when Alcibiades had gone to Ephesus." We find in Xenophon's remarkable treatise on _Domestic Economy_ an interesting description of the method pursued by a model Greek gentleman in training for her domestic duties his young wife, a tender girl of fifteen, reared under the strictest restraint to the end that she might "see as little, hear as little, and ask as few questions as possible."