A ま DEFLER NS ON HIMALE 5 CIETY IN GUT astir - i by ropeans landene. N. a stenighter of da matt of loanri, i, a d her dowry was 100; to brydy nama'y After voga ning ko ten hour in the Grynne cert s we took car bea room we inakda nomber of fans peping hatt red wind, and f Mat & talk puty 1 " 1 REFLECTIONS ON FEMALE SOCIETY IN GREECE. 35 teresting but by no means handsome. She was a daughter of the chief primate of Ioannina, and her dowry was said to be very considerable. After remaining about an hour in the Gynæconitis we took our leave ; but in quitting the room we remarked a number of faces peeping out of an opposite latticed window, and found that a large party of young unmarried girls had been keeping the feast in a different apartment, separated both from men and women. The band of music accompanied us back to our lodging, where we arrived about midnight. The scene we had witnessed naturally gave rise to some reflections upon the degraded state of that sex whose influence has, in general, so great an effect upon society. This degradation in Greece is owing principally to a want of education amongst the females, and an early seclusion from that society which they are intended to ameliorate and adorn but indeed if the first of these evils were removed, the second would soon vanish-for when good principles and a sense of moral duties are early instilled into the mind, there is no need of seclusion or confinement. Women who know their duties are full as apt to practise them as men, and possessed as they are of a greater share of sensibility, are much more easily led to cultivate the mild and social virtues. Of all the countries which we visited, I saw none where this false system of treatment was more to be regretted than in Greece. To judge from the countenances of the Grecian females, they exhibit a vivacity and brilliancy of expression that denotes a high degree of sentiment and genius: they appear also naturally to possess affectionate and kind dispositions, without any tendency to that spirit of profligacy which characterizes the sex in many countries of the South. But what can be expected from the system that is pursued? As soon as a girl approaches the age of puberty, she is more studiously shut up from public sight than a catholic nun. In the interior of the Gynekaios she is confined, but taught nothing beyond the art of embroidery or a few other such frivolous accomplishments, and, if her nurse or mother should be able to read, is instructed in the science of 36. REFLECTIONS ON FEMALE SOCIETY IN GREECE. relics, the history of miracle-mongers, and other absurdities which superstition has engrafted upon religion. As soon as she arrives at a marriageable age, she is affianced by her family, as a matter of convenience or sordid contract, and may be reckoned lucky if she find a parity of age in her partner for life. Very rarely indeed is the hymeneal torch lighted here at the altar of love: all preliminaries are carried on by the intervention of a third party; no opportunity is given to a young couple of studying each other's disposition, and acquiring that knowledge of each other's character which is so essential to connubial happiness; there is nothing to excite those tender anxieties and delicate attentions which interest and refine the soul: the inclinations of the parties most intimately concerned are not thought of; the suitor expects nothing from his bride but a silent acquiescence in the will of others, and the girl herself, anxious for liberty, gives her consent without consulting or even knowing the inclinations of her heart. Very curious surprises sometimes take place, when the bridegroom goes to fetch his affianced spouse. The beautiful infant turns out a picture of deformity; or the plain child is transformed into an angelic woman. Nothing can exceed the anxiety of parents and friends in this country to contract a marriage for their girls *. The brothers in a family, make it an invariable rule, never to marry until their sisters are disposed of; the truth of which was frequently confirmed to me by most respectable authority. The strongest instance I ever met with of this zeal was in a poor decayed tradesman of Ioannina, whom the * Thus it was with the ancient Greeks: nothing seems to have been deprecated among them so much as for a female to remain unmarried. Ανύμφευτος αιὲν ὀιχνῶ Says the wretched Electra in Euripides; and so also the Antigone of Sophocles, REFLECTIONS ON FEMALE SOCIETY IN GREECE. 37 exactions of the vizir, and failures in commercial speculations, had reduced to the last stage of poverty: his still venerable, though melancholy appearance, so strongly excited our compassion in his behalf, that we contributed a sum of money for his relief, which might possibly, with good management and good fortune, have enabled him to regain a tolerable livelihood; but he chose rather to give it all as a dowry with his eldest daughter, a very beautiful girl, to a young Greek, who, according to custom, refused to marry her without one. If the system pursued with regard to females in Greece were found efficient in preserving the morals uncorrupted, and the inclinations steady on the side of virtue, something might be said in its favour: but I am afraid that ignorance and seclusion are quite as bad safeguards of innocence as freedom and cultivation: there will be this difference indeed, that in one case vice will exist divested of all refinement, and immorality exhibit itself in the grossest form: the mind too, unable to enjoy intellectual pleasures, will yield more easily to the seductive influence of the passions. One of the few Greeks whom I found aware of this injurious tendency, was Signore Melas, the very person whose marriage gave rise to the foregoing observations. A more frequent intercourse having subsequently made me better acquainted with this intelligent young man, I discovered that the real motive of his marriage with such a youthful bride, was a wish to release her from the fetters of prejudice, that he might place her under the care of his own mother, cultivate her talents, study her temper, direct the rising energies of her mind, make the first years of matrimony only the latter end of courtship, and thus qualify his wife to become his companion and his friend. These enlightened views of Signore Melas may in great measure be attributed to that intercourse with society to which his continental travels had introduced him. It is a curious fact that the ancient Greeks, like the moderns, were guilty of similar errors in the education of their women: they seem to have been quite careless of all qualities and endowments in a wife, |