dowry she was much more respected, and she even sometimes tyrannised in her turn. Aristophanes, Menander, Lucian, etc., pour out endless bitter criticisms on the haughty and extravagant rich woman. In the comedy of _The Clouds_ the good Strepsiades cries: “I led so happily in the country a good simple life, without vexation or care, rich in bees, in sheep, and in olives! Then I married the niece of Megacles, son of Megacles. I was of the country, she of the town; she was a haughty, extravagant woman, a true Cesyra. The wedding day, when I lay down by her, I smelt the wine, the cheese, and the wool; she cares for perfumes, saffron, tender kisses, expense, good cheer, and wanton transports. I will not say that she was idle--no--she worked hard at ruining me.” According to Menander, religion served as an excuse to women for enormous expenses. Under the pretext of piety they ruined their husbands by religious sacrifices accompanied with perfumes, with golden clasps for the sandals, and female slaves ceremoniously ranged in a circle.[600] One poor hen-pecked husband groans in these terms: “Cursed be the first man who invented marriage, and then the second, and the third, and the fourth, and all those who imitated them.” One old husband laments: “I have married a witch with a dowry. I took her, to have her fields and house, and that, O Apollo, is the worst of evils.”[601] Listen again to this one: “If being poor, you marry a rich woman, you give yourself a mistress and not a wife; you reduce yourself to be at the same time a slave and poor”--(Anaxandrides).[602] To sum up, in ancient Greece marriage implied at first the complete slavery of the wife, who was treated as a thing; then by degrees conjugal customs were mitigated, and the wife became a person, and even a proprietor, whom her dowry or personal fortune could protect. Thenceforward money produced its usual effect on inferior characters: it debased or infatuated individuals who were without moral nobility; cupidity blinded certain men; the insolence of money intoxicated certain women. But this only occurred among the ruling classes, and the fate of husbands reduced to conjugal servitude by love of a large dowry does not concern us here. The important feature in Greek marriage is, that the first legislators regarded it solely from the point of view of increase of population, and held individual liberty, especially that of the woman, very cheaply. Whatever we may think of this legal tyranny, it attained its end perfectly. The small republics of ancient Greece overflowed with men; thus Attica had four thousand one hundred and sixty-six inhabitants to the square league--that is to say, the population was three times more dense than that of France at present. V. _Marriage in Ancient Rome._