VIII. Money

Extract

Public status for women, in a city, a craft-guild or a cult-group, very often depended on ability to pay the bills. This was not to be taken for granted. Women were generally thought to need guidance in financial matters, lest they fall victim to impulse or emotional blackmail or simple inexperience. In classical Athenian law, a woman had, by custom, unquestioned control of her clothes and jewels, her ‘personal effects’, which might be of great value. Her dowry, and any possessions or servants she brought to the marriage, were for the use of her husband. If the marriage ended, they had to be transferred to the man who next took responsibility for her. Without the authority of this man, her kurios, she could not in theory (Isaeus 10.10.2–3) contract for anything worth more than a bushel of barley, which sounds like an archaic equivalent of the week’s shopping.