Strong-Minded Women

1874

You must not think, the woman's-rights movement is a new idea, It dates back as far as the days of Theseus, when Hypolita, the Queen of the Amazons, was vanquished by the Grecian hero, who compelled that strong-minded woman to marry him. Shakespeare, in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," has made a very charming use of that ancient tradition, as, no doubt, all our readers well know.

Even in the present generation these female warriors exist in the Kingdom of Dahomey; their principal drill consists in yelling, firing, and then running at full speed out of danger.

The ancient Amazons, however, seem to have been of a far superior race of beings to the black heroines of Africa, if we may judge from what Herodotus says of the Amazons.

"These Amazons," says Herodotus (Book iv., 110-117), "the Scythians call Aiorpata; and this name in the Greek means man-slayers, for they call a man aior, and pata means to kill." He goes on to tell us that, with a lively, womanly fury, these Amazons, being captured by the Greeks and taken away, "as many as could fill three ships," rose against their captors, when asleep, and cut them all to pieces. But when they had done that, they could not navigate the ships, and were carried at the mercy of the winds to a part of the coast of Scythia. The Scythians, a herd of whose horses they stole, thought they were a set of smaller and more impudent men, and gave the impertinent creatures a beating, till, by their dead bodies, they found that their enemies were women. They then changed their tactics, and sent out only the young men to make love to them; and so these cruel man-slayers were subdued.

It is a very pretty story. There are two or three masterly touches in it that raise it in our esteem, while, at the same time, they prove the truthfulness of the Father of History. Who that knows men and women would not swear that this was true? Herodotus, who visited the descendants of these Amazons, is accounting for a corrupted speech. 1. The men were not able to learn the language of the women, but the women soon acquired that of the men. 2. The Sauromatae (their descendants) use the Scythian language, speaking it corruptly from the first, since the Amazons never learned it correctly. Ask any of the teachers at the ladies' colleges if that is not the touch of a master. 3. When the women understood the men, they (the men) spoke to them as follows: "We have parents and possessions (that's men all over); let us, then, no longer lead this kind of life, but come to our people, and live with them; and (here they put their arms round the warlike young ladies) we will have you as our wives, and none other."

It is a very pleasant episode, and would make a fine picture. The ladies, however, were equal to the occasion. "We could live with you," they said, "but not with your womankind. What would they think of us? We ride, shoot, throw the javelin, kill people and wild beasts. They sit at home, or ride in wagons, and mind household affairs. If you desire to prove yourselves honest men, go to your parents, claim your property then come back and marry us, and let us live by ourselves."

Herodotus does not tell us what the Scythian young ladies said as to a whole posse of their bravest and most marriageable men being thus carried off. The young men, taking their sweethearts' advice went home, claimed their fortunes and goods, and came back to their warlike brides; but, having got thus far, it was not in the Amazon, or woman nature, not to go further. The next morning, they cried out, "Alarm and fear are upon us (poor Amazons!); we have deprived you of your parents, them of you. What will they think of us? But since you consider us worthy to be your wives, let us leave this country which we have invaded, and, having crossed the River Tanais, let us live there." The poor men yielded; and hence, says sly old Herodotus, the descendants speak bad Scythian — just as Mrs. Malaprop or Mrs. Partington might speak bad English, never having caught the by-words cleverly — adding, a Sauromatian virgin may not marry until she has killed an enemy. "Some of them, therefore, die of old age, without being married, not being able to satisfy the law.