More on Greek love

Sarah Hempel comments on my posts about whether the ancients felt love, that “certainly the ancients felt that same fluttering in the tummy feeling…but even more certainly it was no basis for marriage. In fact, they would have thought us quite ridiculous for marrying for love! We have little concept of inheritance, land acquisition, social status, family connection that was gained in a good ancient marriage.” I know that the argument is that the ancients married for these latter reasons, rather than for marriage, but what evidence do we really have for this? And are we sure that what evidence we do have isn’t too heavily weighted in favor of the upper classes—kings and queens and whatnot? The passage from the Iliad that I quoted certainly says that Hector and Andromache love one another. Penelope and Odysseus clearly love each other. Artifacts and poetry from the Roman periods at least suggest some cases where husbands and wives love one another. Is it really certain that people didn’t get married in these times on the basis of love? What evidence do we have that the middle and lower classes—which were the great majority of people, of course—did not marry for love? (I’m really asking—if anyone knows the answer, I’m sure it’s Miss Hempel.)