[86]
No; it is to
these women alone that the law denies entrance to our public sacrifices, to
these, I mean, who have been taken in adultery; and if they do attend them and
defy the law, any person whatsoever may at will inflict upon them any sort of
punishment, save only death, and that with impunity; and the law has given the
right of punishing these women to any person who happens to meet with them. It
is for this reason that the law has declared that such a woman may suffer any
outrage short of death without the right of seeking redress before any tribunal
whatsoever, that our sanctuaries may be kept free from all pollution and
profanation, and that our women may be inspired with a fear sufficient to make
them live soberly, and avoid all vice, and, as their duty is, to keep to their
household tasks. For it teaches them that, if a woman is guilty of any such sin,
she will be an outcast from her husband's home and from the sanctuaries of the
city.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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