Lysistrata And War Essay

In the play Lysistrata by the dramatist Aristophanes, war is created by the women of Athens therefore proving Margaret Mead essay '"'Warfare is only an invention-not a biological necessity'"'. Lysistrata is based around women practicing abstinence until the men come home from war. War is a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties. In Meade"'"s essay war is considered to be invented not biological. War is not a natural occurrence; it is a discovery that keeps modernizing itself as time goes on.
In the essay '"'Warfare is only an invention-not a biological necessity'"' Mead emphasizes the point that man was not born with the need to War. She states '"'warfare of this sort is an invention like any other of the inventions in terms we order our lives'"' (Mead 20). This is made clear by the civilizations that she uses as examples who do not know what war is. '"'Does not the absence of war among the Eskimos, just go to confirm the point that it is the state of development of the society which accounts for war and nothing else?'"' (Mead 21). Mead also points out other civilizations that do not have a war per se but do have a form of conflicts. War is created by the civilization and its surroundings that push
civilizations toward warfare.
War does not just mean guns and blood, but any type of serious open conflict can be considered war.
This essay explains how war is always being upgraded to new forms of conflict. Mead talks about a civilization that does not have full out wars but '"'quarrels'"'. Had this civilization been exposed to guns and weapons, these '"'quarrels'"' would have turned into deadly bloody conflict exceedingly fast. Progression is shown in all types of conflict until eventually we got to exclusively using atomic bombs as threats. '"'people who do not know of duels, will not fight duels'"' (Mead 21). Before duels were invented, obviously there were no duels. This proves Mead"'"s point
thoroughly.
The Mead essay and the play, Lysistrata, are intertwined with the idea of creating war. In Lysistrata the main character, Lysistrata, convinces all of the other wives to practice abstinence until their husbands stop warring with each other. Ergo, she created a war herself, thus proving Mead"'"s essay in the fact that war was invented, not embedded in human nature. War can be stopped by compromised, but in this case compromise was not going to work. '"'War is nevertheless inevitable'"' (Mead 20).
When Lysistrata first put forth this plan to get their husbands back, it seemed like she had this all planned out from beginning to end. She knew that they wanted to take over the Akropolis where the money was held. This shows that she created it all in her mind; hence she invented this war between husbands and wives. She did not just put forth this plan on pure instinct, but a well thought out conceived plan was put in place. This was clearly not a biological occurrence.
This play demonstrated Mead"'"s essay through its clever plan to war. Although there was no loss of life or any violent, conflict this was still war. It was carefully thought out war, this was the main factor in proving Mead true. War is not biological war is a invention of mankind. Was war necessary to bring the husbands home, that question cannot be answered, however it might have been.