Susanna Krizo

Mara: You are right, sex between unequal parties in which one has the right to command and the other only to obey describes a master-slave relationship. This brings us to the next thought: the man’s rule is based on three things: power, sex and housework. The man wants power and sex (which will give him also children) but not the housework. This is why the freeborn Roman men had a wife, slaves and courtesans. The wife provided the children, the slaves did the housework and the courtesans provided the amusement. All three were available sexually for the man under whose authority they were (except the courtesan, who came the closest to equality with the man but only because the man had to pay for her services). The modern man tries to squeeze all of these from the one wife he marries and no wonder it is a disaster.