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The Woe of Wo-man///// Micah Powers

    Women. Greeks had an interesting description of the origin of Women that almost directly contradicts the Judeo-Christian worldview of women. There is quite a bit in the section concerning women in the Theogony. First of all, I find it very interesting that somehow there were female gods but no mortal females before Pandora. To sum up 570-585 in the Theogony, they made women as a beautiful evil for mankind then presented it to all the men and gods. (I know that is an enormous amount to summarize) This Idea of greek Women is much different than the biblical view of women. Genesis 2:18 shows us the first thing God says was not good,

     "The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.' " 

    Later on we see God search through all living things and not find a single creature that was suitable for him, so he created Eve with a special design specifically for Adam. There is definitely fantastic detail in this passage that I absolutely love and want to get into but it is slightly irrelevant to the topic.  This image of the woman is opposite to that of the greek image of a woman. 

    "For from her is a pernicious race. Tribes of women, a great source of hurt, dwell with mortal men, helpmates not in consuming poverty, but in surfeit."-(Theogony 590)

     I will not lie I had not the slightest clue what the word surfeit meant and had to look it up. I understood this to say something along the lines of, "women are harmful they will hurt you and they will not like you when you're broke but they'll like you if you are rich." (Sounds like somebody done got their heart broke amiright?) I am so incredibly hurt by this notion of not viewing women as God's gift. As an older brother of 5 younger sisters, I understand yes the pernicious nature of women sometimes (May God forgive the unfortunate statements made during shark week) but I also understand the incredible gift that is the woman. I have been listening to many, many, sermons this week on relationships, singularity, and Marriage and one thing that I have heard multiple times is that women are the great transformers. You give a woman a seed she gives you a baby. You give a woman food she gives you dinner. You give a woman a house and she gives you a home. You give a woman anything and it is amazing what she turns it into. 

    The fun paragraph. "...he has a good wife congenial to his heart, to him then forever ill contends with good to be with him: 610 but whoso finds a baneful breed, lives with and incessant care to spirit and heart within his breast, and it is an irremediable woe."- (Theogony 605-610) I understood this as "If you have a good wife you are cursed to a terrible life, but if you get a bad wife you will be overwhelmed and depressed" I despise this idea of either way your life will suck but to end on a more humorous not it reminded me of the crazy/hot scale from How I met your mother. we are all college students so I feel comfortable enough placing the following links. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zADosF3XoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_USJCTIgs4

These are all of course satire and comedy but I find them close enough on the topic to include.

I commented on Rachel Gregson and Jackson Riddle's blog. 

Comments

  1. Haley RiddleOctober 20, 2020 at 9:20 PM

    I really enjoyed reading this! I find it interesting as well that women were portrayed in such a dim tone... almost as though women were kind of a distraction when they were not needed? I don't know if that makes sense but it sounds better in my head.

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