The life of Athenian women was entirely devoted to domestic affairs. The part of the house set aside for the wife and children, and afterwards for the grown-up daughters and the female slaves, was generally separate from the rest of the dwelling; and a Greek writer says that, as the door which separates the women’s apartments from the rest of the house is the boundary set for a maiden, so the door which shuts the house off from the street must be the boundary for the wife. We must not, however, suppose that Greek women were entirely shut off from publicity. The wives of poorer citizens, whose circumstances were, of course, quite different from those of the upper classes, went out of doors often enough. Some were compelled to do so by their occupation, and others, who had few or no slaves at their disposal, were obliged to go out every day to purchase food and other necessaries of life. [Illustration: FIG. 79.] It was very common for women to fetch water from the public wells, and to have a little chat there; but in rich houses this duty of fetching the water naturally fell to the slaves. We find allusions to these expeditions to the well in legends and in real life; and they are often represented on monuments, especially vase paintings. Fig. 79 gives an example of the kind taken from a vase painting in the antique style. On the left we see the well, surmounted by a Doric portico; the water is flowing from a lion’s mouth into a jug (ύδρíα) placed beneath it; the woman who has come to fill her vessel stands waiting beside it. On the right we see other women conversing in pairs; two have already filled their jars, and are carrying them on their heads, supported by a little cushion, according to the pretty custom which still prevails widely in the south; the vessels of the two others have not yet been filled, as we can tell from their position.