ABSTRACT
RAPE, seduction and adultery are dealt with in the Code as offences of the same category. In Sparta there were no adulterers, 'not because the women there were so virtuous but because that which could be called adultery simply did not exist'. In Crete, at the time of the Code, adultery has taken on the character of a civil wrong punishable by fines, the Homeric moichagria. The Athenian attitude to adultery puts the whole development in perspective. The ignoble position of women in Athens is familiar, as is the fact that their infidelity was harshly judged. But, in spite of their seclusion, perhaps to a large extent because of it, adultery appears to have been common. It was the concern of husbands and guardians not to give women the opportunity. Both husband and wife had the right of divorce at their pleasure, a general characteristic of primitive law.
