Demosthenes

Demosthenes appears as a cited Athenian authority whose compact classification exposes the gendered organization of Greek sexual and family life. His formulation distinguishes women by the services men expected from them: hetairas for intellectual companionship, concubines for sensual pleasure, and wives to bear sons. In the passage, the line is less a portrait of Demosthenes than evidence of a social order that assigned women different roles in relation to men.

The Three Categories

The account separates hetairas, pallakes, and wives rather than treating them as interchangeable. Hetairas are associated with spiritual or intellectual pleasures; pallakes with sensual pleasure; wives with producing sons. The distinction makes marriage’s social purpose explicit: the wife’s sanctioned role is tied to legitimate descent, while other forms of companionship and sexual access are assigned elsewhere.

Monogamy and Male Access

The passage places Demosthenes’ words within a contrast between Greek marriage customs and polygamy. Although Greeks did not practice polygamy, the citizen could still be described as comfortably polygamous in practice because prostitutes and servants in the gynaeceum could satisfy desires beyond marriage. A pallakis could also take the wife’s place in the master’s bed when she was ill, indisposed, pregnant, or recovering from childbirth. Thus, formal exclusivity did not require reciprocal fidelity: the preceding account states that a woman was expected to remain faithful without reciprocity.

Women’s Legal and Domestic Position

The surrounding discussion of Athens shows the unequal conditions behind this arrangement. A wife was confined to her quarters, subject to legal constraint and surveillance, and treated as a perpetual minor under a guardian—her father, husband, husband’s heir, or, in default, public officials. Guardians controlled both her person and property, and could arrange her marriage or transfer her to another husband. The law did provide a dowry intended to support her and required its return if the marriage ended; in rare cases, it also allowed a woman to seek divorce. These were limited safeguards within a system that assigned inheritance to male children.

Significance in the Account

Demosthenes’ statement gives the passage a concise expression of the gap between marital form and lived power. Greek society could recognize one wife while enabling men to seek different kinds of companionship from other women; the wife’s central social function remained the production of sons. The passage’s focus on guardianship, dowry, and male inheritance further shows that women’s relationships and legal standing were organized around male authority and family succession, not equal mutual choice.