Note 153 — Chapter V

How correct this view is transpires also from the comedy of Aristophanes: "The Popular Assembly of Women." In that comedy, Aristophanes depicts how the Athenian government had reached the point when everything was going at sixes and sevens. The Prytaneum put the question to the popular assembly of the Athenian citizens: "How is the State to be saved?" Thereupon a woman, disguised as a man, made the proposition to entrust the helm of State to the women, and the proposition was accepted without opposition "because it was the only thing that had never before happened in Athens." The women seized the helm, and forthwith instituted communism. Of course, Aristophanes turns this condition into ridicule, but the significant point in the play is that, the moment the women had a decisive word in public affairs, they instituted communism as the only rational political and social condition from the standpoint of their own sex. Aristophanes little dreamed how he hit the truth while meaning to joke.