There is truth in comedy. And the real joke is that it continues about his infant son controls his wife & therefore his infant controls all of Greece via his wife.

And not sure how Thucydides' Pericles telling the future widows of Athens to basically have a 'stiff upper lip' is evidence of them being "absolutely despised". If anything I'd take it as evidence they had status and influence because otherwise the first man of Athens wouldn't be addressing them.

And also from Plutarch, women are the ones who stop Rome from being destroyed w/ Coriolanus.