Roles Of Women In Antigone And The Odyssey

During the sixth century BCE, women were given very small roles in the Greek community. The female duties were glorified in literary such as Antigone and The Odyssey. The typical housewife was made to have children and take care of the home while the men worked and fought. Women were given very few rights and didn't have an input in political issues. Women could exercise very little power in Ancient Greece due to literary, social, and political ideals.

In Antigone and The Odyssey, women are portrayed as insignificant characters to show the quintessential role of Greek women. In Antigone, Ismene is shown as the ideal woman in Ancient Thebes when she chooses law over family by leaving her brother unburied, no matter how offensive it is to the gods. Ismene chose to leave her brother unburied rather than face the rule of Creon, the king, which supports the Greek vision of lawful women. Throughout The Odyssey, Odysseus’s
Spartan girls were trained and given rigorous exercise, but it was mainly in hopes that they would bear strong children. Women in this ascetic society were also seen as the last defense for the polis, therefore giving them the least importance and authority in Sparta. The queens had no power in the Theban monarchy, even though they were higher in society than most men. This shows the relationship between men and women, because no matter how high their social standing was, the women were seen as the lower class. Athens worked toward negotiating order by focusing on the needs of the people (particularly the men). Government positions were only given to free adult males, leaving women with no voice in politics; Athens later opened office positions to all men, again giving women no say in the political world. The mindset of Ancient Greece is visible through three different, self-ruling cities who all had the same opinion on a patriarch