Female Deception in Aristophanes

Female Deception in Aristophanes

The sly, deceptive nature of women in Ancient Greece is a prominent theme in the comic plays of Aristophanes. Like many other Grecian writers, his depiction of crimes committed by women slanders their reputation and reinforces the negative female stereotypes of the times. Yet when one looks at the issue through the eyes of the female characters in his plays, women’s deception appears to be not only natural, but even praiseworthy for its reliability and aide in leadership, and is relatively insubstantial compared to the crimes committed by men. In particular, his two plays Women at the Thesmophoria and Assemblywomen show that female attitudes about deception were varied depending on the crime, and that if a woman’s deception was for a good cause it was pardoned in the eyes of her fellow matrons.

In Women at the Thesmophoria, a Kinsman of Euripides disguises himself as a woman and sneaks into the festival of the Thesmophoria in order to defend the tragic poet, who the women want to kill because he slanders them in his plays. In her speech against him at the festival, Mika complains that he calls them “lover-bangers, nymphos, wine-oglers, disloyal, chattery, unwholesome, the bane of men’s lives” (lines 431-432). On the one hand, these women do not deny the charges Euripides brings against them but seem only to want to continue getting away with them without being caught, ironically giving proof to their deceptive nature. In lines 384-396 the female Herald actually admits that these types of crimes do occur in the household. However, the women’s acceptance of them varies. While they defend the practice of baby-swapping, they denounce women who betray lovers, elderly women who steal youn...

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...n of deceit in women by no means lessens the restrictions on gender roles and norms in Ancient Greek society, it suggests that women’s opinions on deception were much more tolerant if the circumstances behind the deceit made it excusable. Women seem to view their own deception as innate, useful in certain situations, and insignificant compared to the vulgar, selfish acts of men. The combination of these female attitudes with those of the male characters gives women’s deceit both positive as well as negative connotations. Whether a male comedian’s perception of women’s attitudes about deceit reflects actual female opinion or not is still to be contested, but even by poking fun at women’s ability to rule Aristophanes is giving the Athenian women some voice about their own deceptive characteristics and creates a more well-rounded look at female deception as a whole.