The Role of Women as Portrayed in Classical Literature - Essay Example

Order 343203 Topic: The role of women as portrayed in ical Literature Introduction You have, perhaps, never heard a discussion or symposium on the topic, “Men-their role in the society.” The discussion is always about women. Men have, perhaps, no role! The never-ending talk of giving equal rights to women has been going on since time-immemorial. All the Acts of the Parliaments all over the world clubbed together will not bring equality for women unless the change is achieved within-- both by men and women! How can one give equal rights to the woman? God has created her, given her the status of more-equal. No one can take that right away. Mother gives protection in the initial nine months to the divine creative force of the Nature, male or female! What is prescribed about the importance of woman in various scriptures and the actual societal practices vary much. Mostly, a female child is victimized at every step of life, from the moment of birth, notwithstanding the fact that it is the girl who sacrifices at those levels. Women need to be the legal and spiritual equals of men. It is the same old story through the Ages! It is about him and her! In classical literature one gets to know about the tough challenges faced by women, as they rarely enjoyed the privilege of equality. Men did not treat women fairly and they could not aspire to become high standing citizens like their male counterparts. The women were answerable to men and did the designated jobs. Their life was mostly restricted to the domestic responsibilities within the four walls of the house and obedience to the commands of men was their watchword. It could be due to the religious injunctions, as interpreted by the wise men of the day. But some authors of classical texts have penned characters showing grit and determination of women and how they fought, to secure a niche for them in the society. The role and rights enjoyed by women gives an insight into the social conditions and religious beliefs of the period. She is not always timid and subjugated. Some of the examples of her determination are Ishtar, as portrayed in the book Giglamesh. Her role is that of the jilted lover. She is the goddess who tries to win the heart of Giglamesh, but when the love is not reciprocated, she turns vengeful and plots to kill him. She fails in her attempts but what is noteworthy is the intensity of her efforts. How her mind works and how scheming she becomes to achieve her target of love! Her courage in confronting desperate situations is noteworthy. The women in Koran mostly remain on the other side of the fence- determined but for domestic causes. They are supposed to remain contented as housewives, utterly submissive, and to secure love of their husbands is their solitary goal. “Using Medea as a mouthpiece, Euripides does highlight within the cited speech many of the injustices suffered by women in ancient Athens, especially their lack of a public life or autonomy in marriage. Men were free to divorce women on a whim, and thus wives suffered the insecurity of having no control over their own futures. Medea argues that the reputation women have acquired for deception and backhanded manipulation, embodied by her own personal history and practice as a sorceress, derives from the only avenues of power left available to them by society.” (SparkNotes….) The opening scene of Lysistrata depicts the stereotypical and traditional attitudes of women in Greece. She is molded in a different identity in comparison to the typical housewife character. She is unhappy with the other women of her country for they did not come to discuss the war plans with her. War was considered as the subject of the male, and the females in Greece had nothing do with it. She regrets if it were to celebrate some festival, the women would have thronged the streets in large numbers. She feels sorry that women are engrossed in petty household chores, tending children and the important issue like war and peace for the country is sidelined and totally neglected by women. She admits that she is ashamed to be a woman, and she castigates the stereotype women of her era. She wished the women adopt another strategy to overcome the competition of men. She was aware of the strength of the sexual charms of women and urges them to exploit it. It is one of the sources of women-power. She has no objection to consider woman as sex objects. So, the texts of the classical literature portray women as the traditional submissive characters, but sometimes exaggerated versions of women-power are also given. Literary works are the reflections relating to the ground-level realities in the society. Flights of imagination, sometimes highly blown out of proportion, are part of the literary works. The change in the role of women began to take shape in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were no more the exclusive possessions of initially their parents and then the husbands. They began to assert themselves. In every type of literature the changed face of womanhood was evident. They were more educated, intelligent and their independence was evident. They did not hesitate to break conventions and aired their own opinions. Some of the examples of such literary creations are Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. In the book Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: Women in classical antiquity, Sarah B. Pomeroy depicts the highly unfavorable picture of the status of women in Greek and Roman society. None was kindly disposed to women. Barring the status of Aspasia (Pericles’ hetaera), women were restricted to function within the four walls of the house. Their sole priority was domestic responsibilities. They were inferior to men on all counts, and they were often subjects of medical misogyny by the literary stalwarts, including poets and philosophers. She writes, “Classical mythology provides the earliest glimpse of male-female relationships in Greek Civilization. Myths are no lies, but rather men’s attempt to impose a symbolic order upon their universe.”(Pomeroy, 1995, p.1) Malice not intended, yet some details need to be known for the sake of comparison. Greece is considered by many as the founder country of Western civilization. But the women lived in highly unfavorable placements in the society as portrayed in the classical literature of the era. Compare their condition to the plight of women in today’s Saudi-Arabia. Neither eligible for education, no community or political life nor permitted to move out of the house without the specified male escort—all these procedures intensely damaged the psyche of women. “Being a woman in classical Athens cannot have been much fun, if one can rely on the majority of the accounts of womens position in the Greek city-state. The Athenian democracy, traditionally held in high esteem in many other ways, was a democracy of the minority. Women, foreigners and slaves had no influence or true civil rights. They lived in the shadow of the Parthenon and the Acropolis.”(Woman’s…) “For the Greeks chastity was a virtue only in women.”(Pomeroy, p.5) The author tries to throw light on the peculiar position of women in the society by highlighting the character of Athena. “She (Athena) is a patroness of wisdom, considered a masculine quality by the Greeks. She is also a warrior goddess, protector of citadel, armed with shield spear and helmet. In this capacity, she is patroness of a number of mortal warriors and heroes. At times, she disguises herself as a man to facilitate personal contact with her favorites; so she appears to Odysseus and his allies.”(Pomeroy, p, 4) But Athena is an exception meant for heroine-worship only. The ground realities in the society were entirely different and not conducive for the well-being of women. The upbringing of the girl-child was on superstitious lines. From childhood the girl-child was counseled about her role to produce new citizens for the polis. “Women were kept isolated indoors, according to Pomeroy even in a special part of the house, the so-called gynaikonitis (Pomeroy 1976, p. 80).In the contingency of no male heir, the paternal line would continue and the daughter was compelled to marry the closest male relative and this arrangement protected the financial resources of the family which remained intact within the family. The age-gap between the wife and husband could be anything up to 15 years, as the girls were married at puberty to a male whose age was around thirty. Thus it is evident that the girl child launches her domestic life under difficult circumstances, and she often faces health problems, when she became pregnant at the young age. One can safely conclude that the classical Greek literature provides enough evidence as for the trials and tribulations of the women and their grim conditions. The appropriate term to describe their conditions, in oppression! But the past can not always be judged by assumptions. If the prevailing oppressive conditions in some of the countries are any indication, it is safe to assume that the plight of women then could not have been better. ***************** Works Cited Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. Schocken; Reprint edition (January 17, 1995) SparkNotes: Medea: Study QuestionsMedea lacks most of the traits… Retrieved on December 7, 2009 Womans Life in Classical Athens. Article by Meyer, Jorgen Christian.... with honor and dignity as it is portrayed in most academic dissertations…. www.hist.uib.no/antikk/antres/Womens life.htm - 65k – Retrieved on December 7, 2009 Read More