[Σημειώσεις για την θέση των γυναικών στα Ομηρικά κείμενα]
Homeric literature is the main source from which we can draw facts about the way war societies established, on the ethical and moral level, coercion from dominant men towards not only the submitted societies but even more towards most of the members of their own societies and mostly women.
The importance of the submission of women in establishing the new, back then, social reality, which is described by the bipolar of the dominant society on one hand, and the submitted society on the other, occurs from the role assigned to women in most of these texts.
Iliad begins by the "stealing" of Helen and the declaration of the moral obligation of the war-dominant societies to claim her. Besides the teaching and the admiration towards the war excursion, the submission to the war leadership and a whole series of similar necessary for any warring society characteristics, a new role for women is introduced, this of the belonging of the man-warrior.
Odyssey ends by the returning of Odysseus in Ithaca where Penelope waits for him devoted, as obliged according to the introduced doctrine. Odysseus himself, more than any other figure of the Homeric texts, teaches the model of the warrior, the explorer, the ingenious man which in any case stands firmly devoted to hierarchy and Agamemnon.
First note
The traditional mechanism for sexual relation had been up to then and for thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, the "exogamy". Exogamy was the procedure which formed safe zones for transportation, and exchange of knowledge and objects. The meaning of "tribe" or "race" inside these vast networks, was formed since the depths of time more as a cultural feature and less as a genetic.
The catholic practice of exogamy since the forming of humanity even changed human biology as humans lost the ability to inbreed.
Iliad begins by the denouncement of exogamy as "stealing", validating the traditional means for bonding and exchanging between communities. From this point on, not only a woman will be a possession of the man-warrior, but also, bonds of relation and exchange will be replaced by dominance and war-imposing of the strong upon the weak.
Second note
The right of a woman to choose her mate in the context of the community traditions doesn't appear to be limited until the imposing of the war societies, where the woman became possession of the man-warrior. Up to then, it's most likely that it would be a paradox for a woman not to be able to choose or replace her mate.
Third note
In Iliad, when Thersites urges his comrades to return to their families and quit supplying Agamemnon the coolest of the captured girls and all other riches, he becomes humiliated and punished by the trustee of hierarchy, Odysseus. Through those rims, the use of reason that formed human civilization is repealed brutally in the face of the humpback and cross-eyed Thersites. Accordingly, the mechanism of theft, violence, authority and coercion is suggested as the only possibility for humanity.
Fourth note
In Odyssey, Penelope's devotion didn't constitute a strong enough paradigm and teaching, since, besides the achievement of the woman's submission, it was the tradition of totemic equality that should be heart for good. Thus, the equal "suitors", presented as depraved abusers of the royal wealth besieging the queen, eating and drinking in the royal court, become exterminated by Odysseus and his male successor, Telemachos, in a single war scene. The upcoming war societies through this scene take revenge, in a way, from the sum of the human race for its totemic traditions through which the equals bond to each other through the symbolic killing of the mythical powerful progenitor.
Epilogue
By the end of the Homeric texts the ideological attack on the corner stones of human civilization by the war societies is completed. Ever since, war dominant societies subjugate any inferior war-wise society, imposing coercion and bonding humanity to the automation that antagonism produces.
Ever since, humanity is organized on the dipole of the dominants and their subjects, while the dominants are trapped in constantly seeking for resources in order to grow their strength and survive the brutal antagonism they create. These resources are basically the people they have forced to be subjected to them.
War leadership, known to all communities during war periods, in war dominant tribes becomes continuous validating this way the egalitarian totemic traditions. Hierarchy inevitably floods the dominant societies increasing the inequalities inside them. The traditional position of woman is validated and replaced by roles varying between primitive symbol, reproductive instrument, pleasure item and war trophy.
While in human course up to this point, authority and leadership were consciously limited to the symbolic level, since then on, the terms are forced to reverse, meaning that egalitarianism is placed in the symbolic level while at the same time subjugation and coercion are allowed to turn groups and societies to productive herds.
Though during the Roman period the Homeric texts were been taught for -more or less- a thousand years, it proved that this wasn't enough to impose these moral and cultural teachings as obvious values to both the dominants and those subjected to them. Homeric teachings were questioned and confronted in life by the social movements of the epicureans, the cynics, the stoics, and the revival of the totemic traditions by the first christians.
During the classical-antiquity-era we can acknowledge the ongoing ideological war, both through the texts of the survived drama plays like Prometheus, Oresteia, Antigone, as well as by the actual attempts for the revival of the egalitarianism through the efforts for democratic reorganizing.
Besides Prometheus, in all other texts, woman is positioned at the center, presented as the symbol of the old world that either submits or struggles to regain the human meter that can be ensured by the female substance.
Homeric literature is the main source from which we can draw facts about the way war societies established, on the ethical and moral level, coercion from dominant men towards not only the submitted societies but even more towards most of the members of their own societies and mostly women.
The importance of the submission of women in establishing the new, back then, social reality, which is described by the bipolar of the dominant society on one hand, and the submitted society on the other, occurs from the role assigned to women in most of these texts.
Iliad begins by the "stealing" of Helen and the declaration of the moral obligation of the war-dominant societies to claim her. Besides the teaching and the admiration towards the war excursion, the submission to the war leadership and a whole series of similar necessary for any warring society characteristics, a new role for women is introduced, this of the belonging of the man-warrior.
Odyssey ends by the returning of Odysseus in Ithaca where Penelope waits for him devoted, as obliged according to the introduced doctrine. Odysseus himself, more than any other figure of the Homeric texts, teaches the model of the warrior, the explorer, the ingenious man which in any case stands firmly devoted to hierarchy and Agamemnon.
First note
The traditional mechanism for sexual relation had been up to then and for thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, the "exogamy". Exogamy was the procedure which formed safe zones for transportation, and exchange of knowledge and objects. The meaning of "tribe" or "race" inside these vast networks, was formed since the depths of time more as a cultural feature and less as a genetic.
The catholic practice of exogamy since the forming of humanity even changed human biology as humans lost the ability to inbreed.
Iliad begins by the denouncement of exogamy as "stealing", validating the traditional means for bonding and exchanging between communities. From this point on, not only a woman will be a possession of the man-warrior, but also, bonds of relation and exchange will be replaced by dominance and war-imposing of the strong upon the weak.
Second note
The right of a woman to choose her mate in the context of the community traditions doesn't appear to be limited until the imposing of the war societies, where the woman became possession of the man-warrior. Up to then, it's most likely that it would be a paradox for a woman not to be able to choose or replace her mate.
Third note
In Iliad, when Thersites urges his comrades to return to their families and quit supplying Agamemnon the coolest of the captured girls and all other riches, he becomes humiliated and punished by the trustee of hierarchy, Odysseus. Through those rims, the use of reason that formed human civilization is repealed brutally in the face of the humpback and cross-eyed Thersites. Accordingly, the mechanism of theft, violence, authority and coercion is suggested as the only possibility for humanity.
Fourth note
In Odyssey, Penelope's devotion didn't constitute a strong enough paradigm and teaching, since, besides the achievement of the woman's submission, it was the tradition of totemic equality that should be heart for good. Thus, the equal "suitors", presented as depraved abusers of the royal wealth besieging the queen, eating and drinking in the royal court, become exterminated by Odysseus and his male successor, Telemachos, in a single war scene. The upcoming war societies through this scene take revenge, in a way, from the sum of the human race for its totemic traditions through which the equals bond to each other through the symbolic killing of the mythical powerful progenitor.
Epilogue
By the end of the Homeric texts the ideological attack on the corner stones of human civilization by the war societies is completed. Ever since, war dominant societies subjugate any inferior war-wise society, imposing coercion and bonding humanity to the automation that antagonism produces.
Ever since, humanity is organized on the dipole of the dominants and their subjects, while the dominants are trapped in constantly seeking for resources in order to grow their strength and survive the brutal antagonism they create. These resources are basically the people they have forced to be subjected to them.
War leadership, known to all communities during war periods, in war dominant tribes becomes continuous validating this way the egalitarian totemic traditions. Hierarchy inevitably floods the dominant societies increasing the inequalities inside them. The traditional position of woman is validated and replaced by roles varying between primitive symbol, reproductive instrument, pleasure item and war trophy.
While in human course up to this point, authority and leadership were consciously limited to the symbolic level, since then on, the terms are forced to reverse, meaning that egalitarianism is placed in the symbolic level while at the same time subjugation and coercion are allowed to turn groups and societies to productive herds.
Though during the Roman period the Homeric texts were been taught for -more or less- a thousand years, it proved that this wasn't enough to impose these moral and cultural teachings as obvious values to both the dominants and those subjected to them. Homeric teachings were questioned and confronted in life by the social movements of the epicureans, the cynics, the stoics, and the revival of the totemic traditions by the first christians.
During the classical-antiquity-era we can acknowledge the ongoing ideological war, both through the texts of the survived drama plays like Prometheus, Oresteia, Antigone, as well as by the actual attempts for the revival of the egalitarianism through the efforts for democratic reorganizing.
Besides Prometheus, in all other texts, woman is positioned at the center, presented as the symbol of the old world that either submits or struggles to regain the human meter that can be ensured by the female substance.
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Iambe or, otherwise, Baubo was the one commissioned to solace godess Demeter, when she came to Eleusis looking for her daughter Persephone. http://www.sacredthreads.net/www.sacredthreads.net/iambe_baubo.html A comment on the reference to Demeter and Persephone at the Homeric text. https://www.colorado.edu/Classics/clas2100/2100-sample1.html |
