Euripides, fr. 137 (Andromeda)
“Best of all riches is to find a noble spouse.”
τῶν γὰρ πλούτων ὅδ’ ἄριστος
γενναῖον λέχος εὑρεῖν.
This might be one of the few positive comments about marriage from Classical Greece. But, then again, it comes from a woman in a play about a girl rescued from a sea monster…And the positive comment is really about class…
The following is much more typical:
Euripides, fr. 78 (Alcmeon)
“A wife brings her husband
The greatest aid and the greatest
Sickness.”
γυναῖκα καὶ ὠφελίαν
καὶ νόσον ἀνδρὶ φέρειν
μεγίσταν….
Every sickness contains its own cure?
