There is not enough literature on this period from the lower and middle classes of society, and the view we have of women comes from writings of upper-class men. As enigmatic as the women of Athens were, it is clear that "women were mostly legal non-entities" (O'Neal 117) who were denied association and participation in the intellectual life of their city. Women did not participate in education and never learned to read or write. O'Neal writes: “The leading spokesmen of fifth-century Athens, Pericles and Thucydides, disdained Athenian women. » (O'Neal 117) Based on their writings and compelling evidence, it can be assumed that women had only two roles in Athens: a wife or a mother. Ideally, a girl was married off at 14 or 15, and it was necessary that the bride be a virgin, otherwise she was humiliated and sold.