From the spirit pervading the foregoing ceremonies it will be seen, that married women enjoyed at Athens numerous external tokens of respect. We must now enter the harem, and observe how they lived there. Most, perhaps, of the misapprehensions which prevail on this subject arise out of one very obvious omission,—a neglect to distinguish between the exaggeration and satire of the comic poets, much of which, in all countries, has been levelled at women, and the sober truth of history, less startling, and therefore, less palatable. To comprehend the Athenians, however, we must be content to view them as they were, with many virtues and many vices, often sinning against their women, but never as a general rule treating them harshly. Indeed, according to no despicable testimony, their errors when they erred would appear to have lain in the contrary direction.[93] ----- Footnote 93: For example, public opinion regarded it as more atrocious to kill a woman than a man.—Arist. Prob. xxix. 11. ----- Certainly the mistress of a family at Athens was not placed above the necessity of extending her solicitude to the government of her household, though too many even there neglected it, degenerating into the resemblance of those mawkish, insipid, useless things, without heart or head, who often in our times fill fashionable drawing-rooms, and have their reputations translated to Doctors’ Commons. Of female education I have already spoken, together with the several acts and ceremonies, which conducted an Athenian woman to the highest and most honourable station her sex can fill on earth. In this new relation she shares with her husband that domestic patriarchal sovereignty, pictures of which abound in the Scriptures. How great soever might be the establishment, she was queen of every thing within doors. All the slaves, male and female, came under her control.[94] To every one she distributed his task, and issued her commands; and when there were no children who required her care, she might often be seen sitting in the recesses of the harem, at the loom, encircled, like an Homeric princess, by her maids,[95] laughing, chatting, or, along with them, exercising her sweet voice in songs,[96] those natural bursts of melody which came spontaneously to the lips of a people whose every-day speech resembled the music of the nightingale. ----- Footnote 94: She wakes them in the morning.—Aristoph. Lysist. 18. This comic poet gives a concise sketch of an Athenian woman’s morning work, which rendered their going out difficult at such an hour:—Χαλεπή τε γυναικῶν ἔξοδος· ἠ μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν περὶ τὸν ἀνδρ’ ἐκύπτασεν· ἠ δ᾽ οἰκέτην ἤγειρεν· ἡ δὲ παιδίον κατέκλινεν· ἡ δ᾽ ἐλουσεν· ἠ δ᾽ ἐψώμισεν.—Lysist. 16, sqq. Footnote 95: Precisely the same picture is presented in the interior of Jason’s palace at Pheræ, where we find the tyrant’s mother at work in the midst of her handmaidens.—Polyæn. Stratag. vi. i. 5. Footnote 96: