In conservative Athens, women were generally considered fertile fields in which the male seed might be sown to produce children, preferably male, so Athenian women were mostly confined to quarters, living out their dreary lives in badly lit, badly ventilated rooms, and ill-fed into the bargain. In Athens, the girls were fed less than the boys on the theory that males were needed for the army and there wasn't enough food to go around in nonagrarian Athens to feed everybody.