The doctrine that a wife is her husband’s property is applied to the fullest extent, and any offence against that property is punished with the utmost rigour of the law. A husband who finds another man in his harem is allowed to put him to death. At Athens there is no pretence of ‘the sanctity of marriage’: the offence and the punishment is the same whether the intrigue is with the master’s wife or with his concubine: each is equally the master’s property, to be protected at any cost. It is a more heinous crime to make love to a woman who belongs to another man than to offer her violence; for the offence is viewed solely from the owner’s side, and a woman who willingly yields to another is outraging her lawful master’s _amour propre_ more deeply than if she were taken by force. The lover is put to death; the ravisher pays a fine: the point of view being much the same as used to hold in English law, where the wife-beater was regarded as a less offensive character than the poacher. But if the husband of an erring wife had the support of the law, however violent his methods of revenge, the case was very different when the woman was the offended party. There is an anecdote in Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades which reveals the attitude of the Athenian lawgivers. Hipparete made a prudent and affectionate wife;—but at last growing very uneasy at her husband’s associating with such a number of courtesans, both strangers and Athenians, she quitted his house and went to her brother’s. Alcibiades went on with his debaucheries, and gave himself no pain about his wife; but it was necessary for her, in order to obtain a legal separation, to give in a bill of divorce to the archon, and to appear personally with it; for the sending of it by another hand would not do. When she came to do this according to law, Alcibiades rushed in, caught her in his arms, and carried her through the market-place to his own house, no one presuming to oppose him, or to take her from him. From that time she remained with him until her death, which happened not long after, when Alcibiades was upon his voyage to Ephesus. Nor does the violence used in this case seem to be contrary to the laws either of society in general or of that republic in particular. For the law of Athens, in requiring her who wants to be divorced to appear publicly in person, probably intended to give the husband an opportunity to meet with her and to recover her.—_Plutarch, ‘Alcibiades,’ Langhorne’s Translation._