CHAPTER XI

ADVICE TO WOMEN

Pythagoras gave the following advice to women regarding sacrifices. First, since it is only natural for them to desire that anyone who prays on their behalf should be worthy, or even excellent—because the gods pay particular attention to such people—it is advisable that they themselves should highly value fairness and modesty, so that the divinities might be more inclined to grant their requests.

Furthermore, they should offer the divinities things they have produced with their own hands, such as cakes, honeycombs, and perfumes, and should bring them to the altars without the help of servants.

They should not worship the divinities with blood or dead bodies, nor should they offer so much at one time that it might seem as if they never intended to sacrifice again.

Regarding their association with men, they should remember that their parents granted them the license to love their husbands more intensely than even the authors of their own existence. Consequently, they should be careful not to oppose their husbands, nor should they consider that they have subdued their husbands if the latter yield to them in any minor matter.

It was in this same assembly that Pythagoras is said to have made the famous suggestion that, after a woman has had marital relations with her husband, it is holy for her to perform sacred rites on that same day—something that would be inadmissible if the connection had been with any man other than her husband.

He also advised the women that their conversation should always be cheerful, and they should strive so that others might speak well of them. He further admonished them to care for their reputations and to try not to justify the fable-writer who accused three women of sharing a single eye—a story told to illustrate how willing they were to lend garments and ornaments to one another without witnesses, returning them without arguments or litigation whenever one of them had special need.

Furthermore, Pythagoras observed that Mercury, who is called the wisest of all, who arranged the human voice and invented names—whether he was a God (as in Jupiter, the supermundane gods, the liberated gods, or the planet Mercury), a divinity (the Mercurial order of demons), or a divine man (the Egyptian Theuth, or represented by special animals such as the ibis, ape, or dog)—perceiving that the female sex was especially devoted, gave to each stage of their lives the name of a divinity. An unmarried woman was called Core (or Proserpine), a bride was called Nympha, a matron was called Mother, and a grandmother, in the Doric dialect, was called Maia. Consequently, the oracles at Dodona and Delphi are brought to light by women.

By this praise of female piety, Pythagoras is said to have effected such a great change in popular female attire that the women no longer dared to dress in costly clothing, consecrating thousands of their garments in the temple of Juno.