The Binary Division of Respectable and Not Respectable Women

An Athenian woman was confined for the whole of her life to relations with only her husband. Because the pure and legitimate lineage of the offspring was important, women were carefully segregated from men outside the family. Iseyas in his legal speech says that if a woman went out to parties with a man, this was regarded as proof that she was a courtesan and not his lawful wife. Theophrastus: To even say that a woman talked to a man, even if she opened the front door herself, was tantamount to calling her a whore. An Athenian wife would have had plenty of domestic tasks to do so it could be that the time-consuming nature of women's work