The Medea
I hate writing papers, but this one I liked writing. It was going to be titled (at first), "Medea and Why it Sucks to be a Woman in Ancient Greece," but I was told that was inapropriate.
The Medea and Ideals
"Of everything that is alive and has a mind, we women are the most wretched creatures. First of all, we have to buy a husband with a vast outlay of money - we have to take a master for our bodies . . . As for a man, when he has had enough of life at home, he can stop his heart's sickness by going out - to see one of his friends or contemporaries. But we are forced to look to one soul alone. Men say of us that we live a life free from danger at home while they fight wars. How wrong they are! I would rather stand three times in the battle line than bear one child." (230-251)
Those are some pretty strong words. but, do they have some credit? I believe so. from reading The Iliad and The Medea, I gathered that the ancient Greek communities in general did not value women. In these communities, women were second-class citizens who had no rights, could not even leave the house, were not intelligent, and only used what wits they had to be schemers and make selfish plans. The Iliad holds up these beliefs, but The Medea does not. Women, in The Medea are definitely not second-class citixens.
"First of all, we have to buy a husband with a vast outlay of money . . ." This sentiment is not all that off. In The Iliad, women are given away as gifts, especially the beautiful, wealthy princesses. To the highest man went the best woman and down the line it went. The beginning of The Iliad discusses a fight between Agamemnon and Achilles over the "gift" Briseis. She is nothing but an object, a prize, not a human being. The value of women being second-class citizens surely holds true in this piece. None of it is questioned.
Also, in The Iliad, human women do not come into play at all as people. The only protagonists of this work are men. But, we rarely get a glimpse of what is going on in a woman's mind. We rarely read her words. Goddesses, yes, are featured widely. However, this is because all deities are greater than humans, therefore the female deities can have a role. If human women are equal, they would have been featured. Yes, The Iliad is about war. However, the entire story is not set on the battlefield. We get many glimpses of life outside the battle. The plot constantly shifts between the gods and how they interact and the war. The whole piece is not just about death and destruction. However, the only times that we are exposed to life outside the war are to see how the human men in Troy are doing and what is happening socially between the gods and goddesses.
Along with being seen as second-class citizens, the women of Ancient Greece were seen as people who had very little intelligence. The women barely speak in The Iliad. However, in Euripides' The Medea, Medea is a great deal smarter than anyone else, it seems. She is the thinker out of all the characters. She plans things out well and knows that she is clever: "I am clever, and so to some I am a butt to their odium, to others I seem wrapped up in myself, to others quite the opposite, and then again to others I appear anti-social - but I am not excessively clever. And so you fear me." (302-307) Is it so bad to be clever? Yes, she kills her children out of revenge. But, she also used her wits to save Jason and help him escape. If it were not for her, maybe Jason would have been killed by the dragon that guarded the golden fleece, or he could have still lived in his usurped native land of Iolkos under the rule of Pelias. Without Medea's brains, Jason would not be where he is now. Euripides shows that women indeed can think and have intelligence.
But with being clever, Medea also knows that she can seek revenge over a husband that has done wrong. Jason left his marriage to Medea to seek one to Glauce, daughter of Creon. Jason betrayed Medea. Medea phrases it rather well, " . . . your marriage to a barbarian was proving a source of no glory for you as you faced old age." (591-592) Jason also states that he married Glauce to beget children to be royal brothers to his two sons. He says in lines 563-567 that "by producing brothers . . . I should place them all on a level footing, untie them into one family and be prosperous." According to the translator of this book, a Greek audience would have found this a weak argument.* It gave Jason an illegitimate family. It was a faulty argument that goes beyond marriage law. He is in fact, committing adultery. And so, Medea was right to seek revenge. In the notes to line 267, James Morwood, the translator of The Medea, states that the Chorus, being Greek, approve of the revenge tactic. Medea is a smart woman and though a barbarian, she knows the social rules, that revenge can be sought. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, Jason is wrong, she is right.
But, is the revenge tactic such a god thing to follow? In the end, we see that using the revenge tactic may not be the best thing to do. Medea kills her children and Glauce as revenge. Surely she could have chosen something else to use against Jason? This portrays another common belief that women use what wits they have to scheme and do things selfishly. Is this so true? It may seem so. In The Iliad, Athena only fights for her people and makes decisions for her personal wants. Hera seduces Zeus. In The Medea, Medea kills Pelias and her brother for Jason. This isn't selfish. How is helping people you love selfish? She only kills her children and Glauce for revenge. It is also not selfish, in a bad sense. Revenge to the ancient Greeks is acceptable. But, her way of seeking it isn't. So, is she a schemer? I doubt it. If Jason hadn't betrayed her, then she wouldn't have done the right thing and sought revenge. It was only because she is betrayed that she seeks revenge. And it is only in seeking reveneg that she thinks about what she wants; "All is well and I shall come to your [Aegeus'] city as quickly as possible - when I have done what I intend to do and got what I want." (756-758) She also talks to Jason later in the play, saying that she "applauds" him and that she seems "idiotic" (885-886) when in fact, all she is doing is trying to lure him into vanity. She is scheming at this point, but she is using her cunning to seek revenge.
Male vanity is also part of community standards: men can be vain because they can fight and they rule over women, women must be subservient ("we have to take a master for our bodies"). However, it is Jason's male vanity that gets him into trouble. He marries Glauce for vanity. He also believes that he can charm Glauce into changing her father's mind and letting the children stay in Corinth. He says, "Certainly, and, if she is like the rest of her sex, I think I shall persuade her." (943-944) However, though he can convince Glauce, he doesn't realize what is going to happen. His vanity makes him vulnerable to fate. He doesn't see what is going around him because he is thinking only of himself. It is his vanity that ultimately leads to his grief. "In my opinion an unjust man who is a clever speaker incurs the greatest retribution, since he is confident that his tongue can gloss over injustice cleverly, he has the audacity to stop at nothing." (580-583) In other words, painting a pretty picture is all well and good, but you must know the limits and consequences.
"As for a man, when he has had enough of life at home, he can stop his heart's sickness by going out - to see one of his friends or contemporaries. But we are forced to look to one soul alone." Women, because they were second-class citizens, did not have any rights. As the notes say to lines 255-258, "As a resident alien . . . Medea needs a male citizen to act as her sponsor. In fact, she has no male to protect her, and it is obviously impossible for her to turn to her family [because she betrayed her family by helping Jason]. She is without a city to call home, a tragic lot in the Greek world." Therefore, by going back on his marriage he is not only committing adultery, he is also leaving Medea homeless. This is why she uses her wits to get help from Aegeus. It is through self-protection. Men can do whatever they like. But, if a woman cannot think ffor herself, may the gods help her!
We may think that a woman who can think for herself, must be evil. After all, Medea killed her brother and Pelias. What kind of monster would do that? But, for her, those murders seemd the only way out. She was desperate. She only kills her children because she is left with no alternative, she feels. She must seek revenge and leaving Jason with heirs would not be a good thing and would leave her revenge undone. This does not mean that she has no heart: "I cry when I think what kind of deed I must do afterwards. For I shall kill the children, my dear ones. Nobody is going to take them from me." (790-793) Jason cannot have them. But, they cannot go with her to Aegeus's land. That would leave her with a memory of Jason. The only way to keep her children hers is to take them from Jason. But, children are always the ftaher's. She cannot leave the children to their father. They are hers in death.
This leads to the custom and value of loving your friends and hating your enemies. Who are Medea's friends? Who are her enemies? Medea loves her children and Aegeus, for they have not wronged her. She also has no problem with Glauce. Medea knows that it is not Glauce's fault that Jason acted selfishly. Glauce cannot help but be who she is: a princess. Medea only has one enemy in this and that is Jason. He wronged her, plain and simple. Therefore, in following the Greek philosophy of hating enemies and loving friends, Medea is right.
But in all this following of customs and philosphies, we see many, many faults in saying that Medea is right and Jason is wrong. True, she is enacting revenge, but could there have been another way? She is not subservient, but should she be? It seems from this play, that though women followed this rule of subservience, maybe they didn't want to. But, they had to. If they had the power to choose for themselves and had rights, maybe they wouldn't be so bitter. The Iliad gives us the idea that harmony is kept by following these community norms and values, that women are objects and not as equal to men and that revenge is a good thing on which to follow through. Tragedy shows us how wrong that is, that no one can be happy by following all these things all the time. Jason has one solution: "The human race should produce children from some other source and a female sex should not exist. Then mankind would be free from every evil." (573-575) Maybe this is why The Iliad's communities seemed so well put together: because women were not featured. If they had been, the story would have been more like The Medea. If women had a bigger voice, The Iliad would have had different values. The point of tragedy is to question set values. The Medea does this well in showing that women are people, too.
*"The legitimate family would have sought ways of marginalizing the illegitimate one." notes to lines 563-567, p. 174