A wife seeking to escape from an unworthy husband, we see, is regarded in the same light as a slave seeking to escape from his owner, and all the resources of the law are put at the disposal of the husband and the master. There was a constant tendency to think of women and slaves together; and the institution of slavery was certainly one of the most powerful agents in the degradation of women at Athens. A slave-girl was, in the eye of the law, a thing—not a human being, and she was free from all restraints of moral sanction. She was the property of her owner, and her only duty was to obey him in all things: virtue, chastity, modesty, were for her things impossible of attainment; and over the whole business was cast the protection and encouragement of the law. There came into existence a class of women condemned to physical and moral degradation—a class whose very existence was an insult to womankind; so that Aristophanes, at least, has the wit to see that the establishment of a female government would have as one of its first results the forcible abolition of all such recognised and legal forms of vice. Women and slaves then were linked together; and it must be remembered, as Professor Murray says, that people do not become slaves by a legal process; they become slaves when they are brought into contact with superiors who have the power and the will to use them as tools. There are three principal tests of slavery, ancient or modern, and in ancient life they will often apply equally well to women. Firstly, slaves are a degraded and immoral class. This was continually insisted upon; and doubtless one result was to produce, in a certain degree, the vices falsely imputed to nature. Secondly, their work is despised, as unworthy of free men. The harder work was left in the hands of slaves or women, who did not receive any pay, and the super-abundant leisure of the male citizen was devoted to the political life. Thirdly, the condition of dependence, once fully established, soon produces a feeling of despair. The willingness to die, which is so noticeable in Euripides’ heroines, is one of the sure signs of slavery. Slaves are lacking in spirit; some, indeed, are so completely lacking that they are happy in servitude: the impetus to revolt must come from without, especially when the servile state has existed for many centuries. Slavery may be defined as the economic exploitation of the weaker; and, though it does not exist in our time and land, it offers such a convenient basis for civilisation that various devices are used even now to take its place. There is the theory, for example, that some kinds of work are _higher_ than others, and therefore should be paid on a higher scale. Or again, that the same work, if performed by different persons, requires different remuneration.