Only a few hundred years ago philosophers were seriously debating the question whether or not women have souls. With the passing of the centuries an attitude of mind so extraordinary was no longer possible, but other ideas, which are not much less amazing in the light of to-day, long persisted.
The literature of any age reflects current public opinion, and if we would know how women were regarded and what qualities were thought most desirable in them, all we need do is read the literature of that period. Euripides reflects Greek sentiment when he makes Iphigenia say to Achilles, "Better a thousand women should perish than one man cease to see the light." The Latin motto, _Bene vixit qui bene latuit_ ("She has lived well who has kept well concealed"), speaks eloquently of woman's place in the days of the Roman Empire. In the metrical romances of the mediæval period, women seem to live only to grace a tournament or to furnish opportunity for a feat of chivalry on the part of some knight-errant. In Chaucer's time such stories as that of Patient Griselda force us to the conclusion that she was the most highly esteemed woman who patiently endured the grossest injustice and the most cruel wrong. The weak and sentimental women of Fielding, Richardson, and other eighteenth-century novelists call forth our pity when we realize the purposeless lives they were expected to lead. We must not overlook the fact, however, that in every age there have been marked exceptions to the general rule. From the time of Deborah, or long before, each age has had its "new women," its nonconformists, who insisted upon doing their own thinking. Most of Shakespeare's heroines are of this type.
From time immemorial laws have rested heavily upon women. This is true of the Roman law, so just and fair in most respects. Woman was not a citizen with the rights and privileges of a citizen; she was in a state of perpetual tutelage. We do not, however, have to go back to Roman times to find unjust discrimination against women. In this country Connecticut was the first State to give women the power to make a will, which it did only one hundred years ago. It is not long since a law was enacted in Massachusetts giving women a legal right to their own clothing. It took a terrible tragedy only a few years ago, the killing of a number of innocent children by their half-crazed mother lest they fall into the hands of their unworthy father, to cause the Massachusetts Legislature to abolish the law which made the father the sole guardian of his children.