But it was not only the poor who found exposure expedient, although they had an excuse; they “had not the heart to leave their misery to their progeny like a grave and dolorous malady.” To a philosopher of the first century after Christ, it appeared as the greatest scandal, however, that a number of fathers “who did not have the excuse of poverty, who were well off and even opulent, should dare to refuse food to the puny infants in order to enrich their elders, should dare to kill their brothers in order that the living might have the greater patrimony.”[301] This was indeed the Greek excuse or explanation—some of the children had to be sacrificed that others might be raised. The head of a Greek family, if asked why he had exposed some of his children, would have probably answered in the words of the Scythian Anacharsis, “Because I love the children I have.” This was the principal reason alleged by the Greeks for exposing their progeny on the highways, and the father of Daphnis, when he reclaims him, admits this to the son he had exposed.[302] In the religious and social ideas of the ancients, the female child was of little importance—a son alone perpetuating the race. The daughter was hardly a member of the family in which she was born, from the day of her birth until the day she was married. On that day, she passed into the possession of her husband and became his, body and soul. Up to the time she was married, she was in charge of her parents: after that time, she did not even exist for them. On the contrary, it was a sacred duty to bring up a boy. To raise one, was to provide against all possible trouble; whereas a girl was an expensive luxury, a sacrifice for which there was no compensation, and for this reason, in the legend, the father of Atalanta refused to bring up his daughter. “Do you remember,” asks Sostrata of her husband in the _Heautontimorumenos_, “me being pregnant, and yourself declaring to me, most peremptorily, that if I should bring forth a girl, you would not have it brought up?”[303] Thus it was that Antiphili, although of good family, was exposed by order of her mother. One has but to read the fragments of the new comedy to see how the Greeks plainly preferred boys, and under what various artifices they disclosed their dislike to girl children. Half of the _Florilegium_ of Stobius is composed of extracts under the title—“How much better are male children.” In the first rank, he cites Euripides, and after him the authors of the new comedy, Menander at the head. Posidippus indicated crudely the rule of conduct adopted by most Athenians: “The son is brought up even if one is poor: the daughter is exposed, even if one is rich.” CHAPTER XIII FEMALE CHILDREN NOT DESIRABLE AMONG GREEKS—PRECAUTIONS FOR SAVING EXPOSED CHILDREN—ORNAMENTS AS A MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION—ADOPTION UNDER STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES.