Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle

by F. A. Wright

It is obvious that the treatment of these themes in tragedy and comedy will be different; but the initial point of view is very much the same. As for the abuse of Euripides, and there is plenty in the comedies, it is merely part of the comic game, and it is foolish to take it seriously. Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, and Socrates were all close friends, as intimate one with the other as are our leading politicians, and to speak of Aristophanes ‘attacking’ Euripides and Socrates is to misread the situation.

It is not to be supposed that all the members of the Socratic Circle thought alike on all subjects, and even as regards feminism there are some points of difference between Euripides and Aristophanes. The comic poet is rather interested in the woman’s cause than devoted to it, and in many of his plays he certainly hesitates between the gross realism of the phallic god and the new ideas of feminist doctrine. Often, too, in his theatre women occupy as insignificant a place as they did in the actual life of his time. In the Wasps, for example, Philocleon’s household apparently consists of his grown-up son and the attendant slaves: nothing is said of wife or daughter. In the Knights, ‘Demos’—John Bull—has no Mrs. Bull to keep him company: his domestic arrangements are in the hands of men slaves. In the Clouds there is a vivid picture of Socrates at home: house, furniture, and pupils are all described, but nothing of Xanthippë. So in the Acharnians and the Peace we have household scenes, but no women take part in the action: the women are there, but they are persons of no importance. Trygæus, before setting off on his adventurous voyage, bids an affectionate farewell to his little children, but for his wife he has no message. The Megarian sells his two daughters for a handful of leeks and a measure of salt, and then prays to all his saints that he may be lucky enough to get as good a price for his mother and his wife.

A realist, depicting life at Athens in the fifth century, was compelled to give women an insignificant rôle, but even in this group of plays Aristophanes makes one exception, the exception, perhaps, that proves the rule, for even under the harem system the masterful woman will sometimes come to the front, and Haroun al Raschid goes in fear of Zobeida. In the Clouds, Strepsiades is married and by no means independent of his wife: the lady is mentioned, although she takes no part in the play, and the reasons of this difference are instructive. Strepsiades himself is a person of inferior social position, lacking both in will-power and intellectual force; his wife is a woman of property, the daughter of a noble family and herself of determined character. Using all these advantages, she is just able to hold her own with her feeble, foolish husband, and to insist at least on a compromise when their opinions differ.

But it is possible to make too much of the absence of women characters, for the conditions of performance at the Lenæan festival were all against feminine interests, and even though the plot of many of the comedies has little to do with women, there are constant flashes that reveal the author’s feminist sympathies. Of all the episodes in the Birds there is none quite so freshly humorous as the arrest of Iris, the girl messenger of the Gods, and even in the midst of the fierce political raillery of the Knights there comes the delicious interlude of the lady triremes meeting in council; the old stager Nauphantë, addressing the assembly first and revealing the goings-on of the Government, followed by the shy young thing ‘who has never come near men,’ and is determined to keep her independence, ‘heaven forfend, no man shall ever be my master.’ Indeed, considering the state of Athens and the necessity that lay upon a comic poet of suiting the tastes of his audience, the real surprise is that no less than three of the remaining eleven plays—the Lysistrata, the Women at the Festival, and the Women in Assembly—should be concerned with the feminist movement and be written in open advocacy of the women’s cause.

The Women at the Festival—Thesmophoriazusæ—is the lightest of the three, and is really a very brilliantly written feminist ‘revue.’ Euripides is the ‘compare,’ and in various disguises takes part in most of the incidents. He has heard that the women, now assembled in their own festival to which no men are admitted, intend to have him put to death, firstly for being a playwright and secondly as a slanderer of womenkind. He goes round to his friends to save him (the scene is a parody on the Alcestis), and first of all to his fellow-dramatist, Agathon. But Agathon, whose music is then burlesqued, is too much like a woman to be of any assistance. He is another of the inner Socratic Circle, but in the way of jest the most infamous conduct is imputed to him: his appearance is as ambiguous as his morals, and all he can do for Euripides is to lend him some articles of women’s dress for the purpose of a disguise. So Euripides has to fall back on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, the buffoon of the piece, and there follows one of those scenes of disrobing with which we are familiar on the modern stage. The old gentleman is undressed, shaved all over and arrayed in woman’s garments, i.e., he exchanges his rough white blanket for a finer yellow one; winds a band-corset round his breast and puts on a hair-net and bonnet. He is now to all appearances a woman and goes to the Thesmophorian Festival to find out the details of the women’s proposal.

The women assemble, and in an elaborate burlesque of a public meeting recount their grievances against Euripides. It is because of the poet that men have become so suspicious: they scent a lover everywhere, spy on their wives, and lock up the store cupboards. Old men who once would take young wives now remain unmarried, for the poet has told them, ‘When an old man marries a young wife, the lady is master.’ Finally, by his atheistical doctrines, Euripides has ruined many an honest flower-girl, for men do not offer garlands now to the gods. Then Mnesilochus gets up for the defence. ‘I detest the fellow as much as you do,’ he says; ‘but it is unreasonable to be annoyed with him for talking about one or two of our weaknesses—we have ten thousand which he has never mentioned.’ He then proceeds to dilate on some of the frailties which Euripides has omitted; but he is stopped by his angry audience. ‘There is nothing so bad as a woman who is naturally shameless’—the chorus say—‘except it be a woman.’

A fierce discussion begins, until their arguments are interrupted by the appearance of Cleisthenes, one of those womanish men so unpleasantly familiar in Athens, who tells the assembly that a real man is among them. Suspicion at once falls on Mnesilochus; he is discovered by plain evidence to be of the male sex, and is seized by the women. He makes a gallant attempt to escape by snatching a baby from a woman’s lap, and holding it to ransom (a parody on Euripides’ Telephus); but, when he unfastens the child’s wrappings, it is not a baby, but a leather skin, full of wine, which the lady has brought for her private refreshment during the proceedings. He then decides to send to Euripides for help, and a parody of the Palamedes ends the first part of the play.

The intermezzo, as we might call it, between the two acts is a humorous statement of the women’s case on strict Euripidean lines:

Each and every one [the chorus sings] abuses the tribe of women: we are everything that is bad. Well, then, why do you marry us? Why do you keep us indoors, as though we were something very, very precious? Why, if we peep out of a window, does every man want to get a good view of our face? As a matter of fact, women are better than men, not worse; they are less greedy, less dishonest, less vulgar; lastly, they alone are the mothers of heroes.

The second act is a series of attempts by Euripides to rescue his defender. In the first episode the tragedian appears disguised as the Menelaus of his Helen. Old Mnesilochus is the fair but frail queen, and the scene is supposed to change to Egypt. But the women refuse to let their captive free, and he is finally handed over to a north-country policeman, an illiterate gentleman with a very strong accent. On him Euripides tries the effect of another tragedy. Disguised as Perseus he insists that Mnesilochus is the captive maiden, Andromeda, and that he has come to release her. But the policeman proves obdurate. Then Euripides plays his last card. Remembering that all policemen have a faiblesse for the weaker sex, he disguises himself as an old woman, and comes in, leading by the hand a young and attractive female. The policeman begins at once to soften, and when the plump flute-girl sits down on his knee he capitulates, murmuring, ‘What a swaät toöng: it’s reaäl Attic hoöney!’ A last vestige of professional caution makes him ask the old lady her name. Euripides, having to choose a title, chooses a good one, and says, ‘Artemisia,’ which the policeman enters as ‘Artamouxia’ in his note-book, and then, handing over the custody of his prisoner to the old lady he retires indoors with his young acquaintance. The other pair hasten to make their escape, and the play ends with the policeman’s despairing cry, ‘Artamouxia, Artamouxia, where are you?’