Talk:Marriage

"On condition that one could say on good grounds marriage to be a good for sure [...] my opponent, as well, said that it is at bottom a cause of troubles" "Lust of love ("an intense craving for carnal pleasures" U483) is an evil, a big evil indeed" [Philodemus, De musica, IV, 35 -37 Pherc 1497: oistros, adêmonìa]]. "I like an easy and available sex partner, [...] the one Philodemus say not to be expensive and not to make waste one's time to get [...] it's better to distinguish what is prestigious from what is tangible [Hor. Serm. I, 2]. "(Epicureans) think the standard of value should not be birth, position or rank, but beauty, age, physical constitution" (Tusc. Disp., V.33.94)].For moneybags there were also cultivated courtesans of noble family, like Nicaretes of open-minded Megara (like Corinth, see below), but for Epicurean pleasure calculation women are interchangeable means of a pleasure always identical.
"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess" said Samuel Johnson who knew non curricular Horace and Cicero. Pauperem alere difficile est, divitem ferre tormentum: “to provide for a poor wife is tricky, to suffer a rich one is like being shackled ”; a non-conventional philosopher would be 'married' with and passing judgment by her family too, most of all he ought to stain his conscience and chosen values (in like manner of monks); whatever fault might she have, all this he learned after marriage: that didn't happen with a concubine (and housekeepers), more easily repudiable, if she don't fall into line; assidere autem aegrotanti magis possunt amici et vernulae beneficiis obligati quam uxor "For invalid nursing servants and indebted friends are more willing than a wife". “Epicurus … says that a wise man can seldom marry, because marriage has many drawback. And as riches, honors, bodily health, and other things which we call indifferent, are neither good nor bad, but stand as they were midway, and become good and bad according to the use and issue, so wives stand on as they were midway, and become good and bad according to the use and issue, so wives stand on the border line of good and ill. It is, moreover, a serious matter for a wise man to be in doubt whether he is going to marry a good or a bad woman". [Epicurus at Sen. De Matrimonio, fragments; real bridal 'burqa' veil and gynaeceum until hymeneals were peremptory]. Against Theophrastus' opinion that 'to have got first of all a house and a wife' is the foundation of Household Economics, Philodemus refutes that a wife is not a possession [particularly at Rome, r's. n.], and “one can have a happy life without her” [col. 9.1-3. Asmis]; even though it enables to face up in one body intricacies they'd never gotten if not married.
The very wives were being always jealous of husbands' clubs: debates and flautist girls ruin family. "Democritus advise against marriage and procreation because of many bothers and taking off more necessary things. Epicurus agree with him [...]” [Clem. Aless, Strom, II, 23]. Lucretius strengthens it is a natural non necessary desire of decorating oneself and the 'nest' which becomes difficult, limitless and unnatural in civilized state [V, 1020: “no more rape” nor only “arbutus berry and acorns" presents, V 965, but tiaras and Kea island's cloths, IV, 1130]: “one desire which grows through attainment” [IV, 1089]. Philodemus agrees that “nothing is as accostumed to drain and overturn the most distinguished and wealthiest [houses] as drives to attract attention, to become effeminate and other similar behaviors" [On Economy col. 23-24]. They look singleness objectors indeed... Love and self-abnegation were demystified.

Greek eastern gynaeceum habit (but Sicily-Magna Graecia's too - Arabian later on, somewhat until today ...) made jealousy quite demanding, save for 'time-sharing' minus family concubines; reportedly, these are the 'professional' nicknames in the Garden: Boidion (ox-eyed), Demetria (Hermarcus), Hedeia (Polyaenus & Epicurus - with common child - according to Plutarch's Pleas. Life 120, but in Epicurus' will he say only 'the son of Polyaenus' (from whom he has not been inheritance recipient: evidence of not respectable mother): mater semper certa, pater semper incertus), Leontion [scratching young lioness; Seneca and Pliny write of her and of well known portrait as “of Epicurus” or “of Metrodorus”; Lactantius: as an emancipated woman “philosopher”] (Metrodorus & Epicurus- with common child named 'Epicurus'; Athen. XIII 588 b = 121 Usener), Erotion [shorty but sexy], Mammarion [tits] , Nicidion and Themista (honest) (Leonteus), but Philodemus doesn't deny their presence (more than Plutarch, he mentions Demetria too), rather he seems denying (depending on lacuna) that they appeared in theoretic "writings" [Ad contubernales PHerc. 1005, fr. 117, col VI; actually no work entitling a woman friend has been handed down; Leontion, Batis and Themista appear in Letters collections, but they were falling into line partners of authoritative fundamentalist Epicureans]; Lucretius [V, 1353] is definitely male chauvinist even for spinning and weaving. Perhaps Epicureans were unwilling only of lawful marriage (woman with dowry, but also guardianship and defense by the father or brother), but not of easy sexual life, not hôs gametê but hôs hetaira, so Philodemus wonder: "why one should at all costs marry a virgin" [parthenon gamein: ibid col. IX, Tsouna]. Cicero had a dinner in company with hetaera Kiterides too [Fam IX. 26]. Among animals defeat induces depression and impotence. In overpopulated societies jealousy doesn't work, in fact it wears out for excess of zeal. From Epicurus will: women have to be without fail “dutiful”, to the father, guardian, husband, scholarch. Roman women were freer (see Roman Personages) than Greek gynaeceum cohabiters, but were next anecdotes referring to school life or to familiar life? So in Philodemus' Perì Parrhêsias - about the educable persons gender during the debate – (some?) women: “ assume rather that they are reviled and they feel more distressed by the disgrace, and they are more prone to suspect evils concerning those who admonish them and tend to burst into tear [...] they are too vain and too fond of their [reputation]" [XXIIb, & a, Konstan's tr.; "more rash and more frivolous" Voula Tsuna' s tr.; perhaps even then there was some feisty uncultivated person who felt herself 'reviled' if any kathêgemôn didn't spell: 'The Herstory of Whuman Being' ... (a flatterer (kolax) is “the man [/woman] who speaks in order to please” [Phld. PHerc. 1457, IV. 7-8])]. - How may I know what I think about, until I have not told it to my friends? - According to Athenaeus [U121], “Even when (Leontium) began to be a philosopher, she did not cease her courtesan ways, but consorted (gangbanged?) with all the Epicureans in the Gardens, and even before the very eyes of Epicurus; wherefore he, poor devil, was really worried about her, as (Epicurus) makes clear in his Letters to Hermarchus”. Implicit criticism: without fearless non conformist choices and avoidances (autarky, realistic and without ostentation) philosophical life is only an ostensible academic exercise. “Finally, they never taught any woman to be philosopher except one, from all memory: Themista.” [Tusculan Disputations, II.2.4; praised also as one of two cases of women and philosopher by Clement of Alexandria; implausible she was a 'respectable' citizen wife, as Epicurus was outwardly conformist, and admitted avoiding public contempt [D.L. 118-120; so he lived walled-in]: respectable wives had to stay home, otherwise contempt was guaranteed; if otherwise, why not a philosophical friendship/marriage between male-female?
For Greek Epicureans sexual instinct is no good to individual; in case (kinetic desire) to species (Schopenhauer and Darwin reassert). Even Plato in the Republic plans women education as long as they go in for soldiering, breaking in, playing nakedly gymnastics, in brief they ought to be up to men, that “are better in weaving and cooking too” [456e].

Roman rich matronae were quite more independent and free to divorce and preserve marriage settlement (tuas res tibi habeto) only through unofficial certified mail letter (nuntium remittere) - even eight husbands in five years [Juvenalis,Sat. 6, 224: sic fiunt octo mariti quinque per autumnos; unilateral divorce even with recalled husband, divortium sine causa, quo die vir e provincia venturus erat, Cic. Fam, VIII. 7] - and were possibly willing to have a look around for an handsome and healthy biological father of children supported by the good sort chosen by families or by years which go on (according to Jared Diamond (1991) 5 up to 30 % of present day children, and for Robin Baker ten percent of children are not fathered by their "fathers"). But later the Lex Augusta de adulteris charged lack of surveillance and wife swappers husbands. Marriage cum manu (by mastery) of poor women was instead more binding (for her... legally, women weren't in position even to come into an inheritance). So Lucretius seems to believe a sex/sage/friendship between man and woman is possible, getting so “the support of children” [IV, 1257]; but epilogismós, (analogical calculus, DRN. IV, 1150 : nisi tute tibi obvius obstes) should provide a do ut des in interpersonal relation (I give you what you give me), that is equivalent pleasures from same derivation, not sex in return of tenderness/protection: "[They demand] that the weakness of their [nature] should be pitied and pardoned and should not be intentionally abused by stronger people " (Phld., On Frank Speech XXIIb.1-9, Voula Tsouna 2007)]; “You cry, you ask for pity, you look me up and down, you are jealous, you keep touching me and kissing me hard. These are the deeds of a lover, but whenever I tell you I am ready and you hold back, you have absolutely nothing of the lover in you” [Philodemus, Epigrams, 25, Sider's tr. 1997].

In that age – without Aids nor syphilis nor sex-phobia – being rewarded for sexual help - 'The oldest Profession' - was regarded as decent for fine freed/metic-women (punishable but for upper class woman; Tac. Ann. 2.85; Livius, X. 31, they were fined), not to mention priestess of Venus (celebrated the ones of Corinth and Erycus in Greek Sicily, but even today the exotic prostitutes who dance in Hindu temples, the 'bayaderas') nor an odd god like Mutus Tutunnus, nor Nasamonian brides (in Cyrenaic; Herodotus, Histories, 2.32-33); today many European states (e.g. Germany and Netherlands) have legalized, insured, disinfected, taxed, and procurers on the roll boost GDP; but perhaps Epicureans looked toward women liberation (in Rome loose moral women wore toga virilis; Hor. Serm. I.2.63 and 82: togatae) as they hated when she charged, or at least they accepted an inexpensive contract (Lucretius' volgivaga Venus, as “one rut drives out another”, IV 1071) or they relied on transference of their groupies. For the Father of the Church (St. Jerome [Epistles] and Augustin) it was an evil but a lesser evil. “In intercourses, women are fair often spectators, but never with ticket” was said in days of old. Better a settled up demonstrative woman than a truthful spinster – prompted the mothers of a girl without dowry. More easily but the very men/sage/friendship fairly often had a vein of sex (erôs), even though inveterate passive homosexuality in adults (kinaidos) was regarded as inappropriate. Epicurus rebuts opponents' charges of sensuality with young males too [Menoec. 132]. As for women, not a l w a y s she is simulating (nec semper ficto [DRN IV, 1192]: there are some exceptions); for instance noble Sempronia was as much carnal as squanderer [Sall. Catilina, 20]. Times are changing, to day it raises to more than a suspicion that it is the husband's abilities in that line that are at fault; but why never the other way around, if he flops? she can lay it on body feeling intensity much more easily than him; the ancients said that it's easier opening one's mouth wide than stretching out one's arm... and turning professional [cfr. DRN V, 965: arbutus berries and acorns cheap mercenary transactions even among hominids! (scientists have but ascertained it also among confirmed bachelor orang-outangs, and all mammals present an asymmetric relationship between the sexes; ed.'s n)]; like "the same old cunning of courtesan, who groans now of gold chain pilferage, now of a brooch" [Hor. Epist. I. 17, 54]. Messalina had her reasons to override her lovers and to bring them down in the act of flabbiness. Psychological blackmail and hysterical cajoleries yield more than sessions in the struggle for dominance (DRNì, IV, 1145: ne inlaquearis, literally do not be captured by cast net of gladiators ...), and a flop is more convincing than a romantic souvenir for getting profit. A fake illegal abortion in order to make by herself abortionist's fees didn't lose one's reputation. Possessive wives too, in their own small way to help on with slippers, pretended to be insatiable, for making husbands feel guilty. Libidine vero ne maribus quidem cedunt [Sen., Ad Luc. 95, 21].

Effective contraceptives (sponge pellet and lemon juice, bowel-prophylactics, backstreet abortionist) - among working girls - were widespread, and as children of a woman of easy virtue weren't allowed to come into an inheritance, climber women who might 'right herself' had a hard time, but they had a protectress of prostitutes, the goddes Venus Volgivaga (whom Lucretius hold as admissible [ IV 1071] and Philodemus' telling voice say to frequent in his Epigrams), being feted April 23. In any case: “Nay, he (Epicurus) knows, that if once a child is born, it is no longer in our power not to love it or caring for it". [U525; from will: he took full responsibility of illegitimate children who already existed, perhaps of his own]. Commonly love was considered 'a deranged friendship' which often damages estate and respectability (U62; DRN IV, 1122 : alterius sub nutu; like “little dogs wagging one's tail at each whistle”, as wrote Tomasi di Lampedusa too; like a petty servant, non modo servum sed nequissimum servum, Cic., Stoic. Parad. 5.2.36); a not-necessary unlimited desire; the regression of the aroused simperer: Aristotle who carries on his back, dressed up like an ass, the courtesan Philides; St Augustine' senile passion for a young (10) girl, reported in his Confessions.

“love is damaging in itself, it's the longest motive for trouble, rather madness-like” [Phld., On Gods, 76]

For philosophy life expediency freedom from others' dominance is felt. The problem is that, after 2000 years in progress Freud tells the same: “the common people's psychosis” ...; and less seriously (see e.g. his The exact Science of Matrimony) O.Henry: "Love stories a well-known and popular sentiment not properly matter for publication, but something to be privately handled by the alienist and the florist"; and O.Wilde's “the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties” [The Pict. D.Gray]. A sordid jumble of money and sex is considered by Russel's Marriage and Moral; and by Montaigne: "Marriage - liberal only by false front - is too much involved in family life and personal interest, women are decidedly unable to friendship" [Montaigne, 1.28.186-187; but he admitted marriage to be a social priority, "the most necessary", III. 1. 803; but jointly he experienced the free and emotionally shared love: «C'est une convention libre», III.5.889]. «Take love such as it is: the more you'll attach it nobility the more you'll render it dangerous»: this way was taught Miss De Lenclos by Duke De La Rochefoucauld (code: M.D.L.R.F.C ...) [Lettres de Ninon de Lenclos. 1769 ed. Damours]. "It is easy to see that the customary aspect of love is an artificial sentiment, born of social conventions and stressed by women with much cleverness and care to establish their ascendancy and to make dominant the sex that should obey." [Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality]

To tell the truth, even today (in spite of sociologisms' malleability optimism) check is separate only if it is there no hint of mutual sex attraction and she is radical, otherwise she considers deep in one's hearth her share already to be payed by bestowing her own presence (she calls it 'attentions'; as if she made yet dozen of worthy and unavoidable pregnancies ...); and the worst part - as she knows alone for sure to be contracepted - one may discover to be a 'spammed' married ... father: she can miscarry without consent of him, he cannot compel her (reportedly, one has to support even for a DNA certified adulterine child, according to some judges; but in ancient times, there being no DNA evidence, so “... it's for all her faults that the husband must accept full responsibility ...” [Phld. On Household Management col. 2. 3-17 Jensen]); even dating agencies make men pay, not women; more than in ancient times wife and children hardly consider non necessary desires as replaceable, and money is one of the top marital stressors.
If, according to J.Toby and L. Camides, women are evolved for sexually restraining themselves in order to better choose the appreciated partner, at that time of parental choice of marriages, they were likely to be inhibited indeed. For the ancients, until nineteenth cent. AD, before testosterone's function in AGS (Adreno Genital Syndrome) women understanding [see e.g. J. Morey in Annual Review of Medicine 16, 1965, prof Donald Symons of course, and pioneers Master & Johnson electroencephalographies, who answer the question that everyone is afraid to ask], non-doped women were considered almost passive (less drive but more passive multiple stamina): pati natae [Sen., Ad Luc. 95, 21]; but «A few hold the female contibutes with semen to copulation, since sometime she has a delight similar to the male's one» [Aristotle De gen. anim. 727 b 33-35].
Evolution has made Mammalia gullible, in order to propagate themselves (for here we are for relating it …), and this is good, and a social duty, in fit age: a feeling based requirement when one loves the life, and looks forward the joys of one's children. But philosophers mainly were prone at first to be too young (for Aristotle before 37), later too old. Promiscuous behavior by women would be maladaptive for protection and fitness of progeny, mammalian females (primarily the shorter than males ones: female gorilla, who has her cub at all times on her hand is much more short than her polygynist male) have biologic/evolutionary unwitting interest to desire less than males - but like elder sage men, hardly ever (no radio-electroencephalographic evidence of corresponding orgasm; perhaps that's why they have no speech, which among humans has the capability of using same words for different subjective experiences) thus abstinence is not found hard, and only males rape [see: Holland & Rice, Perspective: chase away sexual selection: antagonistic seduction versus resistance. 'Evolution' vol. 52 n°1 (1998); nowadays, among the humans, even complaint of rape against husbands]. Pregnant women of Pleistocene, owing standing position (you can imagine an upright clothes-horse...) and disabled suckling infant (single usable arm), were downright disabled and more in need of inflatus venas defender – for lack of offer - than a free of charges non necessary shared pleasure, with less 'attentions'. The more females' drive accessibility, the weaker their advantage as a class. Hence wifes' prudery and their disdain and verbal bullying (today cyber-bullying) against mercenary traitresses (scabbing). More easy for them to be self-controlled and not belligerent for skilled and varied lovers.
“Passion-dim man attaches values she hasn't” (DRN IV, 1153) and gets addicted ('tenderness': querulousness, childishness, proneness to display social status for reproductive advantage; a concrete 'dope' is involved: oxitocin neurohormone and its receptors, and dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethylamine). “Women hold marriage to be a charitable institution” [Schopenhauer]. A hot man is seldom motivated by charity. A few, in order to avoid rivalry and closely related conventional behavior, hoped for community of women (polyandry), considering that men are fertile for a time twice as women, from Plato's Republic to Zeno the Stoic's and Diogenes the Cynic's Politeiai [see Phld.'s damning particulars in CrHerc 12, Dorandi]; moreover, today the UN Population Fund says there are one hundred seventeen million women “missing, as a consequence of gender gap from medical technology...; consumers' cooperative, as greater demand makes higher price. 'Philistines' managed in cuckoldry maturity with wife and children, in order that estate passed to heir not too late; and prescribed brothel (a sort of factual polyandry retail) to young men (sic!: “Catonis, 'nam simul ac venas inflavit taetra libido, / huc iuvenes aequom est descendere, non alienas / permolere uxores” [Hor. Serm. I, 2, 33]; M. P. Cato the Censor: Cum uxoribus incommode vivitur, sed sine illis omnino non vivitur. "Together with wife one lives unpleasantly, but without them is there no life"; he was no gay but a conservative chauvinist: a fine slave female, and his - charming too - wife was forty years younger, according to Plutarch's Cato, 20; he became an over seventy father with her). Socrates too (a “quibbler” for Phild.), gargling his mouth by virtue, was told choleric by Aristoxenus - Aristotle 's pupil, who's Plato's pupil, using sexual intercourse immoderately (concubinage during the marriage), lending money on usury (for avoiding touches he dressed poor...); but as a boy he was the lover of his teacher Archelaus, for counterbalancing [Life of Socrates; and in Xenophon's Symposium he is in love with beautiful young male Autolykos].
For a rather old or homely woman (as for a man) having an escort is also for self esteem and status. Philosophers hoped for personal reputation, uninterested that their house should become nameless, and considered natural fatherhood to be throwing the dice; “It is also foolish (for men) when dying to be distressed at not leaving behind children for the reasons they mention. [...] For as to the maintenance of their names, it is possible to sleep on both (ears), as countless … [Phld., On Death, 22.9 and 21, Henry]; "the [childless man] will have plenty of caregivers and people to defend his memory. And if we may judge by results, who had such people to care for them as Polyaenus and Metrodorus and Leonteus and Epicurus himself from the day of their death till now, and in a word all those who made progress in our sect?" [ibid; so Theophrastus, frg. 486.70-72; so Horace, Ep. I.5.12]; they preferred youngster pupils whose character and intelligence were certain. "Epicurus wrote [...] their mother got in herself atoms of such a kind that by their conjunction must produce a Sage" [Plut. Contra Ep. beat. 1100a]. "I am glad you take delight in your baby daughter, and have satisfied yourself that a desire for children is natural". [Cic., to Atticus., VII.2.4; he should say 'natural but not necessary' ... it needed an identification/imprinting, genetical or voluntaristic acknowledgment (or sexual trend, not the same for all person), for becoming ever since necessary: ancient fathers raised the new born from floor, spelled a first name looking hard at; or else he/she was exposed]. A mother was not considered unnatural if she refused a rape child or a monster. Nature is often unnatural. Instinct was but disowned with abortion or execution, after jus patrium]. Fructuosior est adulescentia liberorum, sed infantia dulcior, "teens are more productive, but babyhood is sweeter" [Sen., Ep. 9. 7; Epicurean quotes epistle, on human affections]. Among hunters and gatherers children are partially autonomous at seven, as for nourishment (animals do it about after the tenth part of their life); to day a fourth of civilized life is repressed protest. Freud and ethology establish rebellion and protest in young adult, anyway essential for starting a new family. But animals – lacking verbal/moral recollection - react with a corresponding evasion of responsibility. Horace is skeptical about adult children's steadfastness: Parcus ob heredis curam nimiumque seuerus / adsidet insano [Serm. I, 5, 13; “he who deprives himself of some satisfaction for his heir is spaced out”].
Atomists (males) too had funny delays, they believed that through sex act one lost some soul's atoms. Omne (every) animal post coitum triste (dispirited) [Ovid]; semen esse corporis et animae detractam partem. Heu me amantem paenitet conviviorum in quis languor et silentium arguit et latere petitus imo spiritus [Hor. Ia 11. 8-10; widespread opinion, shared from physicians, e.g. Galen, De semine 1.16.32]. And "according to Epicurus erotic practice is never healthy" [Galen, On Medicine 24, I (U62); they had followers too...: the poet and clergyman John Donne (1573–1631); as a matter of fact our body replaces each day 10.000.000.000 of fresh white blood cells with the great easy]. "Epicurus praises continence" [Augustine, De Util. Cred. 10], perhaps as an old man. But Plutarch mentions an Epicurus' chapter on How to excite no longer young men's desires [That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible]. Cicero in Tusc. 5.94 reports genus hoc voluptatum optabile (choosable) esset, si non obsit (if it does not harm), prodesse numquam (it does never be useful). But they were also prone to joke about …: “Zenocrates the Epicurean took the harp-girls in his arms, gazing upon them from half-closed eyes with a languishing and melting look, and saying that this was 'tranquility of the flesh' and 'the rumination' (katapyknôsis) of pleasure.' ” [Alciphron, Letters, III.55.8].
Knowing oneself inside out, and a mate, isn't plain ("What they desire they don't now” [DRN IV, 1118.]; therefore E. deals with it in Doubtful Cases): it would be better if it was led by a god... see Diog L. X. 118. “Sex desire is a thrill which matches with conviction it has an external cause.” [Spinoza, Eth. 4.44]. It's reasonable to wed (with settlement) only if one is rationally and socially prepared (civic duty, female self-abnegation trend?) to risks and duties (not only the joys; as argues the psychologist Daniel Gilbert, against the general trend) of fatherhood and to fading of passionate (oxitocin) to compassionate love and to child-rearing. Of course our experience feeling are no 'oxitocin'... but they result from chemical evolutionary programming. No reductionism but empirical statement of fact that our pleasures cannot grow (P.D. 18). Daily words number between old married couples), and contrasts between female romance novels and male pornography, both losing touch with reality but exploited by industries, are revealed by sociology and by the plain selling success of both … “Assuming, as it was done in traditional social sciences, that man and woman are exactly psychologically alike, clashes with informations we are in possession about sexual psychology born by human evolution” [Buss, The Evolution of Desire (1995); statistical tables and informations from psychoanalysts are even more immediate]. Epicurus apparently agrees, as in his will recommends the Metrodorus' daughter that she marries (that was ordinary, but according to Athenaeus [593b-d] Danae wantet to kept up her matrilinear descent and status, as an illegitimate child) if she will obey Epicurean doctrine [that controls non necessary desires (romances) and charming ways (adulation)], while men (and he himself) have more important philosophical task and only secondarily in particular circumstances and age they feel the need for marrying [see above Philodemus, Clem. Aless., and Diog. L.].
In U.S. today's statistical data of lawful marriages at 52% are alarming as for retirement pension balance. Labour laws are democratically firm (no a priori legal privileges) by scientific evidences more than by party correctness. Today 'matrimony is the major cause of divorce'... [G.Marx]: perhaps in ancient world marriages went on more often just because one expected less (“marriage and the like -, but its contribution [to philosophical good life] is small” [Phld., Pherc 1251, XV]). No movies with happy ending... but no written love stories either (until 316 B.C. in Menander). In Hesiod, a primer, the schoolboy was taught that women have “falsehoods and honeyed words and thievish nature” [Works and Days, 78]. That was not scientific, of course; true only after 'some'.

External sources on Epicureans: Epictetus, Diss. I 23, 3 e 7; III 7, 19; Seneca, fr. 45; Clemens Alessandrinus, Strom. II 23, 138; Teodoretus, Graec. aff. cur. XII 74 (Canivet); Lactantius, Div. Instit 3,25,15.