Abortion and Sexuality

             Women in antiquity not only had limited legal status, no political voice, but were also condemned to a terrible sex life. While their husbands were away fighting wars, they were supposed to be chaste and faithful, eagerly waiting the day when their husbands would return. However, some women refused to wait and instead succumbed to sexual desires and when they did, the consequences were monumental. While I was reading Kapparis’s “Abortion in the Ancient World”, a passage really struck me and even though this was written in a 1913 novel about a couple in a small town in Greece, the evidence that is presented in both his book and from primary sources suggests that women faced similar circumstances when their “dirty” deeds were discovered.

          One evening when he returned home somewhat earlier than usual he caught sight of an old woman leaving the house by the front door. She was tall, with a black wimple tied in a knot beneath her large chin. At the sight of him in the distance, she could not suppress a tiny movement that betrayed a certain fright. Going hastily around the first corner, she disappeared. Something told him that this curious visit portended some indefinable evil for his household. Quickening his pace, he flew up the steps three at a time, the stairway creaking behind him…

       A little later that same evening, when they gathered around the dinner table with their customary bickering and began to eat, Stylianoula suddenly let out a scream with the first mouthful she took.
       ‘Oooch! Oh mama! mama!’
        A terrible pain was knifing through her stomach and abdomen, together with a nausea that made her retch the very lining of her guts…
      The blacksmith became frightened in his own right.
      ‘What’s the matter, wife? I said: What’s the mater?’
      Finally, Stylianoula  was able to blurt out in the midst of her throes:
     ‘I’m poisoned! The old hag poisoned me. Oh god, oh god.’
      She inhaled deeply. The shadow of death, passing over her eyes, made them dilate and bulge with dread.
   Suddenly Belios caught on. Seizing her hair and yanking it until he nearly lifted her off the ground, be brought her contorted and unrecognizable face close to his own at first, then dragged it next to the lamp that was hanging on the wall. In bringing it ear to the light in this way, he apparently wished to read the truth in those terror-stricken eyes, for he started into their depths with his face practically touching hers drove his gaze into her like a stiletto – until all at once, like a lightning bolt, the truth did flash through those glazed eyes that were goggling in paralyzed dismay. It was a truth that cast light for him, but at the same time burned him to the quick. ‘Slut!’ he howled. ‘So you got yourself with a child while I was away in the army, is that it? And you had that hag bring you an herb, and you took it to get rid of the bastard in your tummy? Right?
Still clutching her by the hair, he knocked her head against the wall. ‘Right, slut? And with my own mother as your bawd, eh? Viper! Whore! Lousy filthy whore!’
   ‘Forgive me, forgive …, forgive …’ whimpered his wife, who was dangling like a rag from his powerful fist, her body contracted like an injured snake’s because of the repeated pangs that were slicing through her entrails.

       Still pressing her against the wall, he began to kick her womb with the tip of his shoe and to slap her face while still banging her head against the plaster. Soon a wound opened in the back of her scalp and blood began to splatter the newly white-washed inglenook. In due course, she ceased to resist his blows any longer ot to implore his forgiveness. Instead, she commenced to groan softly and continously unsilencably. She sounded like an aggrieved child whining quietly in a corner. Eventually this muted wail died out as well, her body suddenly slumped inertly in his grasp, her arms thrashed limply this way and he pummeled her, the eyes rolled upwards until only the whites were visible, then went glazed beneath drooping lids.

           While this murder seems like an act of passion, understand that in ancient times husbands not only had the authority to murder their wives, but also their lovers. If murder was illegal in a certain city-state, then the wife was ostracized, leading her to be divorced not only from her husband, but society as well. She could not set foot in public temples, she could not wear jewelry, she certainly could not communicate with other women as she was now seen as filth. This double standard has existed much throughout history in most “civilized” nations leading the husband to have as many concubines and mistresses as he could afford because children from these affairs were simply illegitimate. However, the wife was not allowed this luxury. If she did have an affair, which would most likely be with one of the house slaves, she went to extraordinary measures to hide the evidence due to the consequences described above. I think it’s interesting that we celebrate the ancients Greeks as being a sexually open and free civilization, but women were still chained to the same constraints as they are today.



Eager Groom Shy Bride - Mary Evans