Homeric Women II: Wives

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Homeric Women II Wives
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Married women spin and weave
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Bear legitimate children
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And care for them, thereby perpetuating the city
and their husbands family, while representing
the familys honor
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Preserve the goods of the household, showing
their industriousness, intelligence and planning
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And perform roles in religious rituals that
reflect their duties as wives
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Dedications

• Nicandre dedicated me to the far-darter, the
  maiden who showers arrows, I the daughter of
  Deinodicus of Naxos, distinguished among women,
  sister of Deinomenes and wife of Phraxos.
• Artemis, Telestodice dedicated this statue to
  you, the mother of Asphalios and daughter of
  Thersiles. I the statue boast I am the work of
  Critonides of Paros.

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Dedications
The Peplos Kore (then and now)
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Dedications
Women present Athena with a peplos made by
specially selected women at the Panathenaia, held
every four years.
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Dedications
Dedications to Asclepius, the god of healing,
some by women
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Penelope
This seal ring bears the image of Penelope. What
is the iconography of this good wife in art?
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Penelope and Odysseus
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Penelope

• What are the pressures Penelope faces as a queen
  whose husband is missing?
• What are the strategies she uses to delay her
  suitors and maintain control over her situation?
  How successful are they?
• How is she limited or helped by her gender?

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Penelope

• Odysseus and Penelope have much in common in
  terms of their cleverness and devotion to one
  another -- but how does their gender affect the
  form the similar inclinations take?

Penelope and Odysseus
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Clytemnestra the unfaithful wife
Bring me a man-killing ax!
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Andromache

• What is Andromaches province?
• How does she show her courage and
  resourcefulness?
• What is Hectors province?
• What is the ideal relationship between husband
  and wife?

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Andromache stood by him weeping and taking his
hand in her own. "Dear husband," said she, "your
valor will bring you to destruction think on
your infant son, and on my hapless self who ere
long shall be your widow ... It would be better
for me, should I lose you, to lie dead and
buried, for I shall have nothing left to comfort
me when you are gone, save only sorrow. Hector-
you who to me are father, mother, brother, and
dear husband- have mercy upon me stay here upon
this wall make not your child fatherless, and
your wife a widow as for the host, place them
near the fig-tree, where the city can be best
scaled, and the wall is weakest.
Andromache
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And Hector answered, With what face should I
look upon the Trojans, men or women, if I shirked
battle like a coward? I cannot do so I know
nothing save to fight bravely in the forefront of
the Trojan host and win renown... Well do I know
that the day will surely come when mighty Ilius
shall be destroyed I grieve for you when the
day shall come on which some one of the Achaeans
shall rob you for ever of your freedom, and bear
you weeping away. It may be that you will have to
ply the loom in Argos at the bidding of a
mistress, or to fetch water, treated brutally by
some cruel task-master... May I lie dead ere I
hear your cry as they carry you into bondage."
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Andromache
With this he laid the child again in the arms of
his wife, who took him to her own soft bosom,
smiling through her tears. He took his plumed
helmet from the ground, and his wife went back
again to her house, weeping bitterly and often
looking back towards him. When she reached her
home she found her maidens within, and bade them
all join in her lament so they mourned Hector in
his own house though he was yet alive, for they
deemed that they should never see him return safe
from battle, and from the furious hands of the
Achaeans.
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The death of Hector
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Women lay out a corpse for burial
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Mourning women on a 5th century loutrophoros
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Mourning and Lamentation

• What are some of the reasons that women are
  particularly close to the process of laying out
  and mourning the dead?
• What role does this lamentation play in womens
  emotional experience?
• Mourning of Hector
• Festival of Adonis

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finis