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Chapter One:
Wives, Mothers, and Slaves:
The Women of the Oikos
The Archaic and Classical Greek world was a dual domain. Men were in control of the polis,
the senate, and the courts. They had dominion over their wives, their children, and their slaves.
Although they were supposed to be subject to men in all things, women dominated the world of
the oikos. They made any decisions that pertained to the daily routine of the household. 1
According to historian Walter Donlan, the oikos was “the central institution, a patrilineal
corporation, consisting of the male oikos- head, his immediate family, dependents and slaves.”2
Within this domestic sphere, women held many roles: including wife, mother, and caretaker. The
expectations of her peers and husband were stringent, and they judged her ability to live up to
them. 3 Women in the oikos played the roles ascribed to them, some managed to achieve
excellence as wives or mothers, and others achieved Arête by breaking the boundaries that
constricted them within the household.
The oikos included the family, the servants, and the slaves, but it was not a private entity, it
was an extension of the polis itself.4 Moreover, the household was a corporation run according to
business and economic standards. Love did not bind the family: money did. Sons had to be borne
to continue the line and women who came with large dowries were desirable. Women bore
children to strengthen the oikos, but children also brought further economic strain, particularly
daughters, who required a dowry. Fathers merely tolerated daughters; their use lay in their value
in forming a political alliance through marriage. Despite their general lack of economic
1
C.M. Bowra, The Greek Experience (Cleveland: World Publishing Co. 1958), 27.
Walter Donlan, The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece (Kansas City: Coronado Press, 1980), 3.
3
Thomas R. Martin, Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (Yale: Yale University Press,
2000), 67.
4
Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon Eds. A Companion to Women in the Ancient World (New York:
Wiley- Blackwell, 2012), 87.
2
11
contribution, however, women did contribute to the welfare of the oikos by educating the young
and making clothing for the members of the family.5
The boundaries were set: the upper- class women’s place was the home and everything that
pertained to it. Whenever extraordinary women crossed the frontiers of the oikos, historians and
philosophers perceived them as having failed their natural role and portrayed them as
adulteresses, murderesses, or outsiders.6 Their kleos, or reputation, was ruined. It is a theme seen
time and again throughout Attic literature and art: women who stepped outside the assigned roles
were untrustworthy, foreign, and therefore, dangerous. Hence, men stifled the Arête of women,
they were only perceived as excellent as long as they adhered to the assigned roles of the polis.
Men needed women to further their oikos in terms of progeny; they expected women to play
into their ideals of mother and wife. To Euripides, women were a necessary evil, and his opinion
was echoed throughout Greek literature.7 In his play Hippolytus, the protagonist claimed, “We
might have lived in houses free of the taint of women’s presence. But now, to bring this plague
into our homes we drain the fortunes of our houses.”8 Women were not only relegated to be
second- class citizens, bound to hearth and home, they were also merely tolerated, solely due to
their fundamental import to the future of the oikos. They were wife, mother, weaver, or slave.9
There are examples of extraordinary women in Greek literature and art. The Archaic and
Classical Greeks judged them by their roles of wife and mother. Their ability to perform these
Elizabeth Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994),
30.
6
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York City: Routledge,
1990), 35.
7
Hesiod, Works and Days (Digireads publishing: 2009), 36.
8
Euripides, Hippolytus, Greek Tragedies, vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 263.
9
This concept of gender construction built in the archaic world was explored in the 1970s when Simone de
Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex. As part of the first wave of feminist scholars, Beauvoir explored how one
becomes a “gender” by performing the roles assigned. She claimed, “One is not born, but becomes a woman.”
Therefore, because gender is not fixed or stable, then the roles ascribed to male and female are not constant. So,
when women of ancient Greece broke the boundaries of womanhood and took on roles heretofore outside of
their grasp, they were not achieving the unnatural, but they were performing roles outside of the constructed
norms.
5
12
roles made them memorable and capable of possessing Arête. Penelope excelled as the wife who
faithfully waited twenty years for her husband Odysseus to return home. In contrast, the male
citizens reviled Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband, and Medea, who killed her own
children, for shirking their duties. Women’s ability to fulfill the roles assigned to them was
usually tied to their destinies. If they performed them to the specifications prescribed to them,
they was deemed heroines, if they stepped outside of the boundaries and did not perform their
duties, they were scorned. So how did the women who broke the shackles of the oikos become
figures of Arête10 in their own rights? If they were perfect wives or mothers, they were doing
what was expected. If they erred, they were doomed.
These were the roles that the Greek men assigned to the wives of citizens. There were lower
classes of women in the poleis, however, including metics (slaves), or foreigners. If a woman
was a metic in Athens, she usually had two choices: slavery or prostitution. Those lucky enough
to be bought as household slaves for wives of citizens usually had a life that was enviable of
other metics. They were mostly in the company of other women and the housework they
performed was not as strenuous as that of the city slaves. However, the relationship between the
mistress and slave could sometimes be strained owing to the whims of the real power in the
oikos: the man.
Women within the oikos
In 530BCE, Solon, a politician in Athens, wrote down the laws that were to be followed by
citizens and their families for centuries to come. Those laws clearly outlined women’s position in
the oikos.11 First, subject to the demands of their fathers, a women were given in marriage as
10
AWH Adkins, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values (Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon
Press, 1960), 36.
11
Eva Cantarella, Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek & Roman Antiquity
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 44.
13
possessions to men chosen by their families.12 Once they entered those households, they were
expected to perform their wifely duties without quarrel: to bear healthy children (preferably
sons); to maintain the day to day running of the household, which included “supervising the
preservation and preparation of food; to keep the family’s accounts; to weave cloth to make
clothing; to direct the work of the household slaves, and to nurse her family when they were
ill.”13
Moreover, wives’ contributions were not just important for the well- being of the family that
lived in the oikos itself, but they were deemed salient to the health and preservation of the citystate as a whole.14 The oikos was not a singular institution; it was part of a larger community, so
the men outside of their immediate family could judge the activities of the women.15 Wives were
judged for their fidelity, mothers for their temperance, weavers for their skill, and slaves for their
obedience.
Subsequently, this right to judge was cemented by the philosophers themselves. In Politics,
the philosopher Aristotle strengthened this belief that women were at the mercy of their husbands
and should be scrutinized for their fidelity.16 Furthermore, they were not just under the control of
the men, they were possession to treat as the men liked. He compared men and women to animal
species saying that “with man as with the other animals and with plants there is a natural instinct
or desire to leave behind one another and the union of a natural ruler and natural subject for the
Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives: Volume one trans. John Dryden (New York City: Barnes & Noble, 2006),
131.
13
Martin, Ancient Greece, 68.
14
Chester Starr, A History of the Ancient World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 296.
15
Bowra, The Greek Experience, 29.
16
Aristotle, Politics, Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aristotle 3rd Edition, Ed. Reginald Allen (New York
City: The Free Press, 1991), 409.
12
14
sake of security.”17 Therefore, man was ruler and woman was subject. To Aristotle, women were
little more than slaves.
In Plato’s Republic, we do have evidence that the philosopher did see a use for women
outside of the oikos. He believed women to be capable of rational thought and able to contribute
to the good of society on a public level. When he made them guardians of his mythical city, Plato
stated, “There are no civic pursuits which belong to a woman as such or to a man as such.”18
Plato rejected the very basis of the oikos outlined by other Athenians in his Republic, but the
very fact that this was an illusory world, meant that this dream of women outside the oikos was a
fantasy. In reality, women had designated roles. In order to see what the ancient Greek women
were really capable of, one needs to look at literature. It is there that the fantasies of women were
realized. Greek myth is grounded in the real world. In myth, women were free from the shackles
of patriarchy and were allowed to accomplish what most women in the real world could not.
Arête in Wifehood: the Case of Penelope and Clytemnestra
Nevertheless, ordinary women in Athens were shackled to the oikos because of the rules that
bound them. They were mothers, nurses, wives, and seamstresses only, whereas women of
Sparta and the islands had more freedom. But they were still members of a patriarchal society
and had to adhere to the values of the day. It was up to the famous heroines from ancient Greece
to step outside the norm and face the male polis head on. These were the women with true Arête;
these were the women who exhibited courage in the face of patriarchal limits.
Most classical scholars, including Jaeger, Hadas, and Donlan, considered Penelope to be the
typical ancient Greek wife.19 She achieved the Arête of wifehood, as she was celebrated for her
17
Aristotle, Politics, 410.
Plato, Republic, (454 d-e) Greek Philosophy, 308.
19
Mary Lefkowitz, Women in Greek Myth, 2nd Edition (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press,
2007), 40.
18
15
fidelity and her courage. The shade of Agamemnon in Hades addressed Odysseus in Homer’s
The Odyssey with “What sound intelligence blameless Penelope had, the daughter of Icarius!
How well she waited for her husband! So the fame of her excellence (Arête) will never perish,
and the immortals will make a delightful song to steadfast Penelope for mortal men.” 20 Of
course, to the shade of Agamemnon, murdered by his own adulterous wife, Clytemnestra, any
loyal wife could be seen as excellent! It is Penelope’s role in the household, not her fidelity alone
that reflects her Arête. She strengthens the role of Arête most typically assigned to women by
adhering to the roles ascribed to her by the ancient Greek world.
Penelope’s handling of the oikos in her husband’s absence was what the Greeks would have
seen as the most laudable, yet idealistic, aspect of her character. The only male left in the
household of noble birth was her son Telemachus and he was too young to see to the day-to-day
running of the oikos. Therefore, when Odysseus returned to Ithaka in Book 23 of The Odyssey,
he had his wife’s fidelity to thank that his house was still safe.
It is due to Penelope’s strength of commitment that the suitors had been unable to reduce
Telemachus’ inheritance, which is what they planned to do if any of them succeeded in gaining
Penelope’s hand in marriage.21 When the suitors gathered to gain her hand, she addressed them
in the great hall of her husband’s oikos, “Young men, my suitors, now my lord is dead, let me
finish my weaving before I marry, or else my thread will have been spun in vain.” 22 Penelope,
true to her form as good wife, relied on the suitors’ belief that she was weaving a shroud for her
father- in- law, Laertes, this meant that they were destined to wait until she had performed her
duties to her first husband, before she could take another.
20
Homer, The Odyssey, (24,200-205) Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces ed. Lowall, Thalman, et al.
(London: W.W. Norton & Company Inc. 1999), 505.
21
Richard Heitman, Taking Her Seriously: Penelope & the Plot of Homer’s Odyssey (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2005), 40.
22
Homer, The Odyssey, 2.101-103, Norton Anthology, 222.
16
Meanwhile, every night, Penelope unraveled her work from the day before so that, ten years
later, the suitors were still waiting for her to finish the shroud. This protection and plan, serve to
show that Penelope was capable of protecting her home. One would wonder, why did Penelope
not remarry if she really believed her husband to be dead? In his book, Taking Her Seriously:
Penelope & The Plot of Homer’s Odyssey, Richard Heitman suggested, “Remarriage would
compromise [Penelope’s] kleos.”23 Therefore, Penelope was guarding not just the possession of
her husband’s domain, but her own life: her reputation. This was, after all, the only possession
she had that was truly hers to protect. If Penelope married a suitor, her son’s inheritance was in
jeopardy; she would be subject to the whims of her new husband; and her allegiance would have
to be changed to that of another oikos. This switching of oikos was much more horrifying to
women than it seemed: their allegiances changed and everything that they knew, or were
comfortable with, was taken away from them.
In her article, “Aristophanes and Male Anxiety- The Defense of the oikos,” Jane Gardner
discussed the wrenching of the young wife from her father’s home into her husband’s and how
this separation could cause deep anxiety on the part of all concerned.24 Therefore, Penelope had
already left the house of Icarius, her father, to enter that of Odysseus; the thought of yet another
change must have seemed daunting to her.
Furthermore, the suitors granted her kleos, or reputation due respect. As men, they had the
“masculine right” to take Penelope when and if they chose as her husband was supposed to be
dead, but because Penelope exuded such an aura of respect, they kept their distance from her.25
Her fidelity to her husband was one quality that the suitors and gods alike commented upon,
23
Taking Her Seriously, 70.
Gardner, “Aristophanes,” 55.
25
Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture Vol. one 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1962), 22.
24
17
even by the most impatient suitor Antinoos who said to Telemachus, “She may rely too long on
Athena’s gifts- talent in handicraft and a clever mind […] here are suitors eating up your
property as long as she holds out.” 26 For Penelope, “holding out” meant holding on to her
fidelity, something that she did with great constancy.
However, whereas wifely fidelity was expected of the ancient Greeks, the same was not true
of husbands towards their wives.27 Throughout the Homeric epics, there is evidence of many
husbands who slept with women other than their wives: Agamemnon, Odysseus, Menelaus,
Ajax, and, of course, the immortal Zeus just to name a few. The women who defended the oikos
for their men away at war were held to a different female standard than their male counterparts.
Penelope’s quiet acceptance of her husband’s infidelity would further her kleos in the minds of
Greek men, for “she does not demand strict fidelity; she and Helen do not object to their
husbands’ liaisons with other women, so long as they are temporary.” 28 At the end of The
Odyssey, despite his dalliances with Calypso and Circe, Odysseus returned to his wife and she
greeted him with open arms. This is what the Greeks expected of their wives; true loyalty!
The same cannot be said, however, of Clytemnestra. She broke the boundaries of wifehood in
search for Arête and she has the unfortunate reputation as being perhaps the most reviled wife in
Greek literature.29 As the complete antithesis of Penelope, Clytemnestra succeeded in destroying
the oikos of Agamemnon in his absence by taking her own lover, Aegisthus, into the household.
When he returned from the Trojan War, he was faced with what Greek men would deem a
nightmare. Not only did Clytemnestra plan on his death, she also betrayed him by taking another
26
Homer, Odyssey, 2.121-130, Norton Anthology, 223.
Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon Eds. A Companion to Women in the Ancient World (New York:
Wiley- Blackwell, 2012), 63.
28
Lefkowitz, Women in Greek Myth, 125.
29
Kathleen Komar, Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation (Urbana, University of Illinois
Press, 2003), 78.
27
18
man into her bed. This is what Greek men feared most when they welcomed women into their
oikoi.30 Clearly kleos and oikos were less important to Clytemnestra than they were to Penelope,
but this is what makes her case so much more interesting.
In Aeschylus’s Oresteia, the tragedy of the house of Agamemnon is chronicled starting with
the return of Agamemnon from Troy and Clytemnestra’s disgust at his actions. After she killed
her husband, she claimed “By my child’s Justice driven to fulfillment, by her Wrath and Fury to
whom I sacrificed this man.”31 Thus, Clytemnestra claimed her revenge on Agamemnon for
sacrificing her daughter Iphigenia to the gods. When her husband committed this act, her
allegiance to his oikos was shattered, and his days were numbered.
If Agamemnon were to have taken possession of another man’s oikos and his wife, he would
have achieved manly courage and Arête by conquering the domain of another. The fact that
Clytemnestra does this and is considered as vengeful shows the different and hypocritical
standards by which men and women of the times were supposed to live.
As a woman who did not back down to the patriarchy of her husband, Clytemnestra stood
apart from most other Greek women. She was one of only a few fictional examples who dared to
stand up to her patriarch. The consequence of this was, of course, her death, but the astounding
bravery with which she went against her husband’s will is evidence that the Greeks were aware
of the power that women could wield. In her book, Reclaiming Klytemnestra, Kathleen Komar
even goes as far as to praise Clytemnestra for her actions, “Clytemnestra was the first feminist…
she ruled alone for ten years; she endured the sacrifice of her child; she took a man who pleased
her. How could she possibly go crawling back to her domestic duties after such a life?”32
Gardner, “Aristophanes,” 53.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, The Oresteia, 1432-1433, Norton Anthology, 52.
32
Komar, Reclaiming Klytemnestra, 113.
30
31
19
This assertion that Clytemnestra was the first feminist allows us to look deeply into the
psyche of the woman who turned what the Arête of wifehood was into something wholly
different. Aeschylus gave us an almost modern perception of woman in the figure of
Clytemnestra. She was a woman with a job, albeit a temporary one, but as acting regent of Argos
there was no sign that she had shirked in her sovereign duties. She also took what she wanted:
she had been without a husband for ten years, and took a man for her own carnal pleasure,
unheard of in ancient Greece for ordinary women. Moreover, when she heard of the sacrifice of
her daughter; surely a most traumatic incident for a mother, she took vengeance into her own
hands.
Furthermore, Clytemnestra did not just stand against her own oikos, she also represented the
deep set fears that many young women must have had when entering into the house of much
older men, and strangers as well. “Her story is really the struggle of female, blood right against
the founding of male, rational law and the establishment of patriarchy.”33 Her story provides us
with a glimpse into what women were capable of and what might have been. However, as with
all other women in ancient Greece who manifested change and tested the code of patriarchy, she
was doomed to die and to receive a damaged kleos because she dared to defy her husband.34
Nonetheless, Clytemnestra can be remembered for her strength and the fact that she broke the
bonds that had restrained all other women in the oikos. J.H. Finley wrote in the 1960s that the
Arête of women in Ancient Greece consisted of “the quiet virtues… men determined the nature
of Arête both for men and women; and clearly it would be easier to live with a Penelope than
with a woman manifesting the Arêtai of a Homeric hero.”35 One would question why that was
so? Maybe because the men of ancient Greece were threatened by a woman who could exert the
33
Ibid., 26.
Adkins, Merit & Responsibility, 22.
35
J.H. Finley, Four Stages of Greek Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), 37.
34
20
same power and influence of which they assumed they had the monopoly. Clytemnestra was
doomed because she did not fit the Arête that was expected of women, but of men.
On the Attic red plate at Antikensammlung,36 (Image One, page 89) one can see the image of
Clytemnestra as she goes to murder her husband. Axe in hand, she strolls confidently through the
doors of the oikos. On her lips plays an enigmatic smile, as she seems sure of what she is about
to do. Her hair is tied back and her stance is wide in self- assurance. Through this image, one can
discern her confidence in her decision. She was not a wallflower wife awaiting the displeasure of
her husband; she was a woman in charge of her own destiny.
The Arête of Motherhood: Clytemnestra and Medea
Clytemnestra, Penelope, and most other Greek women of the oikos did have one thing in
common; they were also mothers. This could mean a number of things depending upon the status
of the mother, the gender of the child, and the area of Greece in which the child was reared.
However, universally, Greek women expected to bear children, it was their destiny and their
primary purpose in the oikos.37 This was so important to the Greeks, that the Athenian Solon in
the sixth century BCE even incorporated the importance of reproduction into his laws. In order
for a married citizen to remain free from taxation, the law “obliged the husband of the woman to
have sex with her at least three times a month.”38 This odd suggestion becomes less so, when one
takes into account the other options available to Greek men. They were able to lie elsewhere;
whereas, their wives could not.
36
Komar, Reclaiming Klytemnestra, 133, An Ancient Kytaimestra. (Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen
zu Berlin- Preusischer Kulturbesitz).
37
Gardner, “Aristophanes,” 54.
38
Brule, Women of Ancient Greece, 160.
21
Moreover, a legal bond connected men and women; love and physical attraction would not
have been a necessity. 39 The arrival of children, to women, must have been welcome gifts,
especially if they were in loveless marriages. But what else was expected of these mothers in the
oikos?
In Athens, the legitimacy of the child was always paramount to the interests of the oikos.
According to the law of Solon, citizen men should only marry the daughters of other citizen men
to guarantee legitimate offspring. 40 Therefore, it was essential that when women entered the
oikos of men, that they be virgins, ensuring the identity of future children. Historian Susan
Blundell wrote “in Classical Athens, it was an offence to have sex with an Athenian woman
before she was married… they did their very best to ensure that children knew who their fathers
were, and, most importantly. That fathers knew who their children were.” 41 This emphasis on the
father having knowledge of his offspring furthers the belief that men were constantly wary and
distrustful of their wives.
So, wives first of all must have legitimate children unequivocally sired by their husbands,
after which their identities then took on the duality of motherhood. In Athens, mothers portrayed
the role of educators when their children were first born.42 This bond was a reward after the first
traumatic experience of the change in oikos. However, once the child was around five or six,
things changed for the mother and her child. If the child was a boy, the father took over the
education, and the child was usually sent to an academy or a tutor would take charge. 43
39
Susan Fischler, Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis, Women in Ancient Societies Archer, Fischler,
and Wyke ed. (New York City: Routledge, 1994), 119.
40
Plutarch, 129.
41
Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 45.
42
Hadyn Middleton, Ancient Greek Women, (Oxford: Heinemann Library, 2002), 13.
43
Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 152.
22
Therefore, the bond between mother and son was cut short in Athens and she would only see him
at meal times, if no outside guests were present, and at various family functions.
The relationship between mother and daughter, on the other hand, was much more fulfilling.
As the primary educator of her daughter, the mother’s duty was to ensure that the child was
ready to run her household, in some cases, at the tender age of thirteen. 44 Yet even this
relationship was short- lived, as the girl would inevitably leave her mother to take up residence
in her husband’s home. Furthermore, the Athenian matron was unlikely to see her daughter ever
again once she had left the oikos.45
However, the Spartans, once again, offered the mother more freedom and enabled her to
develop a lasting and fruitful relationship with her children.46 In addition to overseeing the early
education of both of her children, she was also allowed the freedom to move around the polis and
engage with other mothers as she brought her sons and daughters to the gymnasium.47 In addition
to this, Spartan matrons would also have the freedom to visit the oikos of adult daughters and
even participated in the furtherance of their sons’ careers as soldiers. The renowned patriotism of
Spartan women led the biographer Plutarch to write an entire book on the Sayings of the Spartan
Women. Within this chronicle, precedence was given to the strength and integrity of the
Lacadaemonian female.
The relationship between state and oikos was never more potent than when one mother
“hearing that her son had fallen at his post said: ‘let the cowards be mourned. I, however, bury
you without a tear, my son and Sparta’s.’”48 Once again, this strong woman seems to have been a
harsh critic of any son who failed his mother. She had given birth to him and raised him, yet, the
44
Brule, Women of Ancient Greece, 162.
Garland, Robert Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1998), 62.
46
Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 54.
47
Ibid., 57.
48
Ibid, 59.
45
23
sheer strength of the Spartan polis ethic tied the mother’s allegiance to the state above that of her
son.
This seeming callous behavior would have been normal to the ancient Greeks who expected
mothers to sacrifice their sons for the good of the polis. Women were called upon for sacrifices
throughout their life: they sacrificed their first home for their husband’s, their children for the
good of the polis, and their kleos if they stepped out of line.
However, in Greek literature, one can discern mothers who again refused to accept the lots
given to them. The goddess Demeter did not allow Hades to kidnap her daughter Persephone,
and declined to allow him to introduce Persephone into the new oikos of the underworld. 49
Demeter’s tale of a mother wandering the earth searching for her daughter must have echoed
strongly with the women who lost their daughters at such an early age. In fact, women identified
so much with the motherhood of Demeter, that they dedicated the biggest female religious
festival to her in Athens: the Thesmophoria. 50 During this festival, the women would echo
Demeter’s relationship with Persephone through various rites. “its most solemn day, [was] the
Nesteia, when the women abstained from food in imitation of Demeter’s mourning for her lost
daughter.”51 This joint expression of mourning for a lost child portrays how women felt when
their children were torn away from them and clarifies the almost silent voice of Athenian
mothers.
Even though she was mostly reviled in Greek literature for being a less than perfect wife,
Clytemnestra’s love of her children cannot be denied.52 She killed her husband in revenge for her
daughter, but incurred the wrath of her own son. Orestes, as the heir to Agamemnon’s throne,
49
Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon, Classical Mythology 7th Edition, (New York City: Oxford
University Press, 2003), 307.
50
Foley, Reflections of Women in Antiquity, 170.
51
Ibid. 195.
52
Komar, Reclaiming Klytemnestra, 45.
24
was duty-bound to kill his mother in vengeance for his father. However, he did so with a heavy
heart. When he killed his mother, he exclaimed “my victory, my guilt, my curse.”53 He had to
kill his mother for blood vengeance and his own Arête, but even when he did so, he knew that
she had killed his father by following the duty of a mother.
This epic story is further explored in the final part to Aeschylus’s Oresteia; The Eumenides.
Orestes was brought to trial in Athens to answer for the grievous sin of killing his own mother.
This trial provoked further debate about the nature of parenthood. Athena, as judge at the trial,
stated, “No mother gave me birth. I honor the male.”54 Athena alluded to her birth from Zeus’s
head and she reinstated the fact that Orestes’s allegiance was to his father and not his mother;
therefore, he should be acquitted. This is further evidence that the Greeks believed that the
allegiance of the child should always be to the father; once again the mother was a burden to be
borne.
In one of the most shocking mother-child relationships in Greek history, Medea and her
children, the ancient Greeks once again debated the allegiance of children to their father. She
was renowned as the mother who managed what was monstrous to most: the murder of her own
children. Yet this woman, like Clytemnestra, has been completely misunderstood by most
classical scholars. When Euripides wrote his famous play in 431BCE, it seemed that the flood
gates were opened; once a mother could kill her own offspring, anything seemed possible. “A
mother’s deliberate slaughter of her children undermines one of the basic assumptions upon
which society, indeed humanity, is constructed: mothers nurture their children. Once this
assumption breaks down, all others are open to reconsideration.” 55 Sarah Johnston illustrates
53
Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, The Oresteia, Norton Anthology, 567.
Aeschylus, The Eumenides, The Oresteia, Norton Anthology, 588.
55
Iles, Johnston, Sarah, Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia, Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth,
Literature, Philosophy, and Art. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007), 64.
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that, to Athenians, the possibility of a woman betraying the role that she is most destined for,
motherhood, was tantamount to chaos. This is a recurring theme in Greek literature: men being
threatened by women’s capabilities.
The comforting fact that Euripides offered his audience, however, was the fact that Medea
was not Athenian. She was from the city of Colchis, outside of the Greek poleis, and therefore,
outsider.56 What she did was what foreigners did, Athenian women would never commit such a
heinous act. The chorus in the play reinforced this foreignness when they explained the pain that
Jason had left her. “She tried to please the people to whose land she had come, an exile, and for
her part to fit in with Jason in everything.” 57 Moreover, Medea had committed the ultimate
treasonous act; not only did she forsake her polis when she aided Jason in the capture of the
golden fleece, but she also killed her own brother in the process. Medea, then, is the ultimate
enemy of the oikos. She broke the boundaries of motherhood: the most treasured role of a
woman in the classical world.
After giving birth to two children and crossing the known world with Jason on the Argo,
Medea was finally brought to Corinth. When she arrived there with Jason, he deserted her to
marry King Cleon’s daughter. This betrayal of her marriage bed and the ultimate treachery of the
man for who whom she sacrificed everything is what prompted Medea to commit the
unthinkable. In the first part of the play, one is inclined to feel sympathy for her. In her essay,
Becoming Medea: Assimilation in Euripides, Deborah Boedeker states “she is above all an object
of pity, recently abandoned by the man for whom she betrayed home and family, and now about
to be exiled.”58 However, the enduring image of the mother with the blood of her children on her
Simon Pembroke, “Women in Charge: The Function of Alternatives in Early Greek Tradition and the
Ancient Idea of Matriarchy,” Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1967, (30), 5.
57
Euripides, Medea, Stephen Esposito ed. (Baltimore: Focus Classical Library, 2004), 36.
58
Deborah Boedeker, Becoming Medea, Medea: Essays, 133.
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hands is an unshakable one. Euripides makes sure that the last image of Medea in the play is
anything but sympathetic.59
However, Medea represents more than just a single woman. Like Clytemnestra, she is a
symbol for all the women who had been abandoned by their men in ancient Greece. Her anger at
her husband and her vengeance showed her as a strong female who would do anything for her
kleos. Furthermore, she stood for women who did not have her strength or conviction. Historian
Eva Cantarella asserted “Medea does not lament a personal unhappiness nor does she weep about
her individual fate- speaking in the name of all women, for the first time in Greek literature, she
rebels against the sufferings of the female condition.”60
The strength that emanated from Medea’s actions reveals a deeply troubled, yet surprisingly
heroic personality. Medea killed her children not just for vengeance, but also for their protection.
If Jason married the princess, Creon would be threatened by children who could challenge his
heirs for the throne. It was most likely that the children would be killed by the Corinthians.
Moreover, in her suffering, Medea received the catharsis of emotion: no one can hurt her,
because she has hurt herself more than anyone else could. In addition to this, there is the myth of
Seneca that stated Hera had offered Medea’s children protection in the afterlife, 61 so Medea
ultimately sent her children to a better world.
Medea can therefore be seen as a heroine who made the ultimate sacrifice for a better future.
Her speech to Jason revealed her true pain “Of all creatures that live and have understanding, we
women are the wretchedest breed alive… men say that we spend our time at home, and live safe
lives, while they go out to battle. What fools they are! I’d rather stand three times behind a shield
59
Euripides, Medea, 90.
Cantarella, Pandora’s Daughters, 68.
61
Nussbaum, Martha C. Serpents in the Soul: A Reading of Seneca’s Medea, Medea: Essays, 232.
60
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than bear a child once!”62 Medea represented women who were the passive vessels in the oikos.
By taking her destiny into her own hands, Medea became the active participant in her
partnership, and therefore gained her kleos. 63 Thereby, Medea broke the boundaries of
motherhood in the most dramatic manner, history would remember her as a monster, and one
would remember her as a heroine who sacrificed everything for her Arête.
Conclusion: The Roles of Women in the oikos
Women of the oikos were relegated to roles as wives and mothers. They were destined to live
their lives within the confines of the household at the whim of fathers, husbands, and masters.
Historically, for the women of Athens, there was rarely an escape from this fate. The birth of
their children provided only a temporary reprieve from eternal loneliness. They were distrusted,
cheated upon, and castigated if they ever stepped out of line. The women of Sparta, however,
offered an alternate reality of how women could be treated and how they could harness their
strength as mothers. Yet, the men were ultimately in control in all of the poleis of Greece.
Looking at both the poleis of Athens and Sparta, one can see similarities and differences.
Athenian women were more subjugated than their Spartan sisters, but ultimately the same was
expected of them both: to be faithful and obedient wives and mothers.
Myth and literature, however, demonstrate what women were really capable of in the ancient
world. Penelope may have been the archetypal ideal wife, and Clytemnestra stood by the role
expected of a mother but Clytemnestra and Medea were women of the oikos who also stood apart
from all others. They emanated power in the face of adversity, they did not shy away from
righteous violence, and they broke free of the shackles that bound the women of the oikos to
change the way Arête was viewed forever.
62
63
Euripides, Medea, 45.
Martin, Ancient Greece, 134.
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