For the boon bestowed upon Athenian men by his founding of the “deikterion,” one of Solon’s contemporaries thus sings his praise: “Solon, be praised! For thou didst purchase public women for the welfare of the city, to preserve the morals of the city that is full of strong, young men, who, without thy wise institution, would indulge in the annoying pursuit of the better class women.” We will see that in our own day exactly the same arguments are being advanced to justify the existence of prostitution and its maintenance as an institution sanctioned by the state. Thus the state laws approved of deeds committed by men as being their natural right, while the same deeds were branded as criminal and despicable when committed by women. It is a well-known fact that even to-day there are a great many men who prefer the company of a pretty offendress to the company of their wife and who, nevertheless, enjoy the reputation of being “pillars of society” and guardians of those sacred institutions, the family and the home. To be sure, the Greek women frequently seem to have taken vengeance upon their husbands for their oppression. If prostitution is the complement of monogamic marriage on the one hand, adultery of wives and cuckoldom of husbands are its complements on the other. Among the Greek dramatists, Euripides seems to have been the most pronounced woman-hater, since in his dramas he preferably holds up the women to ridicule and scorn. What accusations he hurls at them can best be seen from a passage in “The Thesmophoria” by Aristophanes,[13] where a Greek woman assails him in the following manner: With what calumny doth he (Euripides) not vilify us women? When e’er hath silent been the slanderer’s tongue? Where there’s an audience, tragedy and chorus, We are described as man-mad traitoresses, Fond of the cup, deceitful, talkative. We’re wholly bad, to men a tribulation. Therefore, when from the play our husbands come,[14] They look distrustfully at us and search about If somewhere not a lover is concealed, And henceforth we no longer are permitted To do what harmlessly we did before. Such wicked things he tells the men about us, That when a woman only makes a garland, They think she is in love; or when at home She works about and dropping something, breaks it, The husband promptly asks: “For whom this broken glass? Quite evidently for the guest from Corinth.”