In Athens the women were closely watched and carefully guarded. They were usually placed in the back part of the house and in the highest rooms, and for the most part the women and girls passed their time in the apartments allotted to them. There was no intercourse between young men and young women. Women were considered men's inferiors and they were thought little better than the slaves and they had but little more influence with the men. Woman was looked upon as an entirely lower being intellectually than man, and so not a fit companion for him in public life. When men outside the household were present in the home, the women were expected to seclude themselves. When a dinner was being given the company consisted entirely of men and the wife kept herself and her children in the women's quarters. The young women rarely went from home. Even if it was necessary for them to appear in public religious ceremonies, they did not take part in common with the other sex but acted apart from them. Thus the training of the Athenian girl and that of the Spartan girl were quite in contrast and while the Athenian girl grew up to be a pale, slender lady, but little versed in the ways of the world, the Spartan girl grew up to be a vigorous, robust, healthy woman, ready even to take part in public debate if necessary. Yet there was at least one class of women in Athens not secluded, for "in the London market of Billingsgate it is the fishwomen who have been notorious for abusive language; at Athens it was the bread-women."[156] A discussion of the women of Greece could not be complete without including the much discussed but little understood class known as the _Hetairai_, the stranger-women of Athens. Whether they were simply courtesans or whether they were women seeking freedom from the restraints and seclusion of the wife or whether they were both courtesans and seeking freedom and education, they certainly exercised a remarkable influence in Greece.