Socrates listens with great interest to this advanced theory of wife-training as it is unfolded to him, and sagely remarks that the husband is responsible for her errors if he does not properly teach her. It seems that he did not try the system on Xanthippe, or if he did it was a dismal failure, as the much-abused woman is never quoted as a model or a saint, and we do not hear that he taxed himself with her shortcomings. He said that he married her for the excitement of conquest--the same motive that leads a man to try his power over a high-spirited horse; also as a discipline, because he was sure that he could endure every one else if he could endure her. It would be curious to know what she thought about it, but one cannot help suspecting that she had the lion’s share of the discipline, and that Socrates was a greater success as a philosopher and talker than as a husband. There was one exception, however, to this rigid seclusion, a small recognition of the fact that women probably have souls. They were allowed a part in religious festivals, and these were events in their lives. They meant a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of the outer world. Perhaps they meant also a little spiritual consolation, which must often have been greatly needed; but of this we are not sure. The Hellenic divinities were not eminently consoling, and the wise Athena was particularly unsympathetic, though the Athenian virgins had at least the pleasure of making her richly ornamented robes, and putting them on her once a year. The woman in the comedy says that at seven she could carry the peplum in the procession, at ten she ground cakes for the patron goddess, and when she grew to be a beautiful maiden, she had charge of the sacred basket.