Goguet
quotes the story from St. Augustine, who got it from Varro. Cecrops,
building Athens, saw starting from the earth an olive-plant and a
fountain, side by side. The Delphic oracle said, that this indicated a
strife between Minerva and Neptune for the honor of giving a name to the
city, and that the people must decide between them. Cecrops thereupon
assembled the men, and the women also, who then had a right to vote; and
the result was that Minerva carried the election by a glorious majority
of one. Then Attica was overflowed and laid waste; of course the
citizens attributed the calamity to Neptune, and resolved to punish the
women. It was therefore determined that in future they should not vote,
nor should any child bear the name of its mother.
Thus easily did mythology explain all troublesome inconsistencies. But
it is much that it should even have recognized them, at so early an
epoch, as needing explanation. When we ask for a less symbolical
elucidation, it lies within our reach. At least, it is not hard to take
the first steps into the mystery. There are, to be sure, some flowers of
rhetoric in the way. The obstacle to the participation of woman in the
alphabet, or in any other privilege, has been thought by some to be the
fear of impairing her delicacy, or of destroying her domesticity, or of
confounding the distinction between the sexes. We think otherwise. These
have been plausible excuses; they have even been genuine, though minor,
anxieties.
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