The Ideas Of Women In Shakespeare's Medea

Throughout history women have played various roles in society as well as in their domestic lives. It is no longer the majorities idea for a woman to be imprisoned to their home to carry out only domestic tasks. The roles have evolved dramatically over the centuries. We have ancient literature like Aristophanes in Lysistrata and Euripides in Medea to help interpret how women lived in these times. Women of the past were not thought to be important other than to be a sex object to males and bear children for them. Today however, many women take for granted all the rights and privileges granted to them that ancient women would have died for. Women of our time can vote, hold prominent positions in companies and they don’t have to sell themselves

Older literature shows the women only being able to take care of their homes and weave all day. This new literature sheds light on what women can achieve if they take a stand for what they believe in. Similar thoughts of women’s roles are expressed by the author Euripides in the play Medea. It seems like a normal thing for a couple to fight and become revengeful with each other after a break up. However, during the classical Greece era woman were expected to marry around the age of 14 where as men did not marry until age 30. These separate lifestyles of male and female along with the 15 years’ difference among husband and wife contributed to the intellectual capabilities of the two. The women expected to marry at such a young age had no role in selecting their future husbands. A families’ lineage and size of her dowry was huge contributing factor to who entered marriages with

At this time, they lacked the basic standards in hygiene as well as not understanding how the female body works. “In the play Medea, Euripides has the title character make this bold statement: “I’d rather stand three times in the front line than bear one child” (Clay, Paul and Senecal 37). Historians have estimated that Athenian women would have to go through the child bearing process about five or six times. Childbirth deaths were very common. It was something to celebrate a women and baby survived delivery. Male children were the most desired outcome of the childbearing process. “Women thus had the legal function of producing not just sons, but political beings. The female chorus in Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata speaks for all women announcing, “I have a share in public service. For I contribute men” (Clay, Paul and Senecal 41). If the baby was a boy, the birth would be announced and an olive crown would be placed outside the door of the newborn’s house. If it was a girl however, the door was hung with a tuft of wool. This signaled her future duties as a wife, mother and