Role of women in ancient Greek mythology
Name
Institution
Introduction
Myths serve two key functions: 1) to answer the kind of awkward questions normally asked by children like ‘How was the world made? Who was the first person to live in the world? Where do the souls of the dead go?’ 2) To account for a community’s customs and rituals as well as to provide a justification to the existence of a social system. In ancient Greece, myths featuring monsters, heroes and heroines as well as gods and goddesses formed a crucial part of the way of life. Stories were handy in explaining everything ranging from the weather to religious rites and helped people to draw meaning from the world around them. Like in most other ancient cultures, women were the subservient gender in ancient Greece. On the one hand, women were widely regarded as troublesome and symbols of negative normative values. On the other hand, men were generally synonymous with strength and leadership qualities. Unarguably, Greek mythology features blatant sexism. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that women enjoyed a higher position of power as well as necessity. Greek mythical stories present women who take up various roles including being the heroine, victim and villain (Athanassakis, 2004). These paper discusses the role of females such as Aphrodite, Electra and Medea in Greek myths of the archaic and classical periods. …show more content…
Women in these old stories were generally associate with their beauty, their wits and the manner in which their actions either hindered or promoted legendary and mythical
Name
Institution
Introduction
Myths serve two key functions: 1) to answer the kind of awkward questions normally asked by children like ‘How was the world made? Who was the first person to live in the world? Where do the souls of the dead go?’ 2) To account for a community’s customs and rituals as well as to provide a justification to the existence of a social system. In ancient Greece, myths featuring monsters, heroes and heroines as well as gods and goddesses formed a crucial part of the way of life. Stories were handy in explaining everything ranging from the weather to religious rites and helped people to draw meaning from the world around them. Like in most other ancient cultures, women were the subservient gender in ancient Greece. On the one hand, women were widely regarded as troublesome and symbols of negative normative values. On the other hand, men were generally synonymous with strength and leadership qualities. Unarguably, Greek mythology features blatant sexism. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that women enjoyed a higher position of power as well as necessity. Greek mythical stories present women who take up various roles including being the heroine, victim and villain (Athanassakis, 2004). These paper discusses the role of females such as Aphrodite, Electra and Medea in Greek myths of the archaic and classical periods. …show more content…
Women in these old stories were generally associate with their beauty, their wits and the manner in which their actions either hindered or promoted legendary and mythical