A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom Read Free Book Online Page B

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    In ancient Greece, wives were generally younger than their hus- bands—by ten to twenty years. Since they were strictly excluded from almost all activities outside the house, they could hardly be full compan- ions to their husbands, who spent most of their waking hours away from home in the agora (forum), marketplace, gymnasium, and brothel. Mar- riage was respected as an institution that provided progeny and good housekeeping; it was not expected to fulfill one’s longing for a soul mate. Instead, the ideal union, at least among the cultured elite, was homosexual. In direct contrast to the Judeo-Christian mentality, the homosexual union between a man and a boy was presented as both natural and laudable. Plato (427–348 B . C . E .) extolled boys who enjoyed physical
    contact with men and believed that when these boys become adults, “they’re sexually attracted to boys and would have nothing to do with marriage and procreation if convention didn’t override their natural inclinations.” Like heterosexual couples, homosexuals joined by “affection, warmth, and love” were deemed to be suited for “lifelong relationships.” 21
    In addition to Plato, such diverse Greek writers as Xenophon, Aris- totle, Aristophanes, and Plutarch, covering a span of five centuries, did not consider homosexual relations unusual. When we consider the large body of textual evidence, it is hard to disagree with the view that homosexuality in ancient Greece, at least among the upper classes, “was not only a widespread practice but perhaps a universal one and one that was certainly considered to have high cultural value.” 22 But it would be wrong to assume that it was unproblematic. As several classi- cists keep reminding us, even the most enthusiastic proponents of homosexuality limited it to the man-boy relationship. 23 Pederasty was a sanctioned social institution designed to initiate young men into a vir- ile fraternity, with a prescribed set of conventions for the adult male, who was usually under forty, and his boy lover, aged twelve to eighteen. It was not viewed as a replacement for marriage.
    Since women in Athens were generally restricted to female company in their homes, and since affection between husbands and wives was not particularly stressed, some married women may have found solace with other women, though we know virtually nothing about lesbian practices in classical Greek society. What little we know comes from an earlier source, from the poetry of Sappho, who was born on the island of Lesbos around 612 B . C . E . and who is believed to have headed an association ( thiasos ) of young women. In these female communities, women learned music, singing, poetry, and dance. The belief that Sap- pho loved several women is based on the fragments of her poems that have come down to us, and the references to her found in the works of subsequent Greek writers.
    The one extant song that still exists in its entirety is Sappho’s “Hymn to Aphrodite.” In it, Sappho petitions the Goddess of Love to transform her unrequited passion for a young woman into reciprocal love. Aphrodite gives an encouraging response:

    Who,
    O Sappho, does you injustice?
    For if indeed she flees, soon will she pursue, and though she receives not your gifts, she will give them,
    and if she loves not now, soon she will love,
    even against her will. 24

    Sappho’s poetry would have been unknown to almost all Greek wives, since most could not read, and all but courtesans were excluded from the male banquets where her poetry might have been recited. Some women, like Sappho, undoubtedly found pleasure in the arms of other women, as they do today, but then it would have been a very dan- gerous liaison indeed. The Greek wife was not her own property. Given by her father to her husband “for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring,” she spent the greater part of her adult life being pregnant, nursing and tending children, preparing food, and