Woman in the Golden Ages

Excerpt: 'In this series of detached essays I have tried to gather and group the most salient and essential facts relating to the character, position, and intellectual attainments of women in the great ages of the world. It is not an easy matter to trace with any exactness the lives of women of classic times, as they were largely ignored by men who chronicled events. If the historians gave them any place at all, it was an insignificant one, concerning only their relations to men, and they were more inclined to sing the praises of those who ministered to masculine caprices than of those distinguished for any merit whatever. There were exceptions in the cases of a few women of very remarkable gifts; but even these were subject to the worst aspersions, for the simple reason that they had the courage of their talents and convictions. This fashion of considering women only as convenient appendages of men may account largely for the space given to those of more beauty and sensuous charm than decorum—a fact which has doubtless misled after-ages. It accounts also for the reckless flings of satirists and comedians, who were even less to be trusted in early times than they are to-day. Truth compels me to recall more or less the contemptuous attitude of men, as it was too large a factor in determining the position of women to be omitted. But in no case has it been exaggerated, or set down in a spirit of antagonism.“