Differences Between Homer And Hesiod And Homer's Theogony

Women have had a long history of being inferior to men. The inequality of genders can be traced all the way back to Greek mythology. Both Hesiod’s Theogony and Homer’s Odyssey demonstrate the Greek’s early thoughts on this issue. Homer and Hesiod would agree that women are deplorable creatures and marriage usually leads to suffering. Hesiod spares no detail of his despise while describing the creation of women in Theogony. He claims that the sole reason for the female was to punish men. They are described more like an object that make men weak and useless rather than an actually human. Hesiod never describes a single positive aspect of a woman; instead he focuses on how they negatively affect men. He goes on to describe how women lazy, useless, …show more content…
At the orders of the son of Cronus, the famous lame smith-god [Hephaestus] shaped some clay in the image of a tender girl”. Nothing that harbor even a small amount of respect is described as a “plague”. Hesiod emphasizes this point again when he calls females “the damnable race of women-a plague which men must live with”. Both descriptions clearly show that women had a very low place in Greek society during the time Theogony was written. These same ideas are supported by Homer in the Odyssey. He also believes that women are nuisances to society and are only useful if they are in some way benefiting a man. Most of the women in the Odyssey are painted as either manipulative, untruthful, or unfaithful. By the end of his journey, Odysseus is under the impression that he should not even trust his wife Penelope even though she is the epitome of a perfect woman. The overall theme conveyed by Homer is that women are more trouble than they are worth, which is demonstrated continuously throughout the …show more content…
Because Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra plotted his death, she “has shamed not only herself/ But all women to come, even the rare good one”. This highlights how all females are seen as deceitful and troublesome, even if they have done nothing wrong. They are considered a burden to the success of a man above all else. In addition, they still serve to punish men. In conversation with Agamemnon, Odysseus proclaims, “Ah, how broad-browed Zeus has persecuted/ The house of Atreus from the beginning,/ Through the will of women”. Homer could not be more direct in showing his low thoughts of women than by making them a retribution from the gods. Hesiod is also very blunt about his thought on marriage in the Theogony. He makes it very clear that a man will most likely be unhappy whether he is married or not. If a man chooses not to suffer a marriage, then he will have no one to take care of him in his old age. On the other hand, if he does choose to get married, he will probably suffer. He will either have a bad wife, or she will give him bad children. There seems to be no way for a man to live comfortably when it comes to