The Motif Of Marriage In Sophocles Antigone

The Motif of Marriage in Antigone

In Ancient Greece, marriage was a process of objectifying women and this paradigm was often incorporated into women’s personal lives. Not only was marriage legally regulated to a degree, but it was additionally seen as a business transaction with the groom’s family paying the bride’s family for the young woman, demonstrating the materialization of the marriage process towards females. Women were given a price value and no say in their participation in the ceremony, clearly marginalizing them and providing them with little benefit. In contrast, marriage did not treat men similar to objects as they were freer to marry later or not at all and they were allowed many sexual relations, holding them to a superior …show more content…
This speaks to the same objectification seen today with advantages for men, generating the question of if society is confined by the patriarchy. Antigone was unable to marry Haemon before the time of her death, yet it is important to note that society, and herself believe that the primary role of women is to marry, marginalizing them. Society told Antigone that her role was to marry, believing societies beliefs and values, she internalized them and believed in this same marginalization of herself. On the other hand, Haemon’s opinions were evaluated, proving the contrast in the rights of men and women. While society has made strides to fix the unequal expectancies of men and women through various women’s rights feminist movements, society still appears to value men over women with men making more money than women in the workplace, men paying smaller amounts of money for the same products as women, and women being viewed as selfish if they chose their job over children. With only some progress made over the course of hundreds of years from culture now to Ancient Greek culture, the trap of a patriarchal society is visible through the aforementioned inequalities. Making one question if society will ever have the ability to get out of this negative situation, and if so how long will it