Virgins forever
According to some authors, this excluding of women /we always talk about wealthy class/ was positive for the increase of Pederasty among the men, who behaved to each other so intimately as in the company of a woman and they were forced to live with men.
We will later look at in more detail. It is for sure that rich Greeks lived in two parallel worlds, but not always corresponding ones and that means in the world of men and women.
The life role of a woman was to get married. "A woman is in blossom for a short period of time - complaints Lystistrata, famous Aristofanes's figure in the 596th verse - and if you do not use it sufficiently, nobody will want her when she is old: she is sitting in a continuous unrest, she is waiting and trust only to a fortune tellers." It means, she will remain single.
A girl was preparing for the a marriage from her early life. She followed and listened to her mother in everything. From her she learnt how to run the household, and how to retain her virginity. Marriage offered these women bigger freedom providing that except for sex learning, they became to get into higher position from subjugated women or beginners became ladies who ran their own household. By the virginity protection, the state was very demanding and the seducers wre punished by a strict penalties. " Our ancestors were so strict, that when their honor was in play, and when they so much appreciated innocence of their daughters, when the townsman said, that his daughter had been raped, and she would not be virgin in marriage, she was closed into a solitary house with a horse, where she died of hunger. The land, where the house stood is nowadays called A horse and agir. "/Easchines" Against Trimark, page 182/ One commentator mentioned that not a girl but the donkey died of hunger after eating the girl. We do not know which of these two solutions is crueler.
In rare occasions, when highly positioned women went out, usually during religious celebrations or funerals, there was a custom that if they were not in the company of a husband, they were accompanied by a strong servant and a reliable bondmaid. Some readers might suspect that they used these sporadic escapes for showing up in the best clothes. Maybe because of that a wise legislator Solon set that a woman could not wear more than three pieces of clothes. Consumed food and drinks could not cost more than one obolos, to avoid wild entertainment. If she had to sleep somewhere else, she could travel only in a carriage with lit lamp.
During the 5th century BC, the situation started to change and a woman reached bigger freedom and it was a similar phenomenon as we saw in the West in 20th century. Some liberal intellectuals /Protagoras, Gorgias, Demokritos, Euripides/ sophists and famous philosophers were in favor of these changes. They suggested revision of old opinions and appreciaton of a man and his will.