Chapter 6 Comparison of Attitude Towards Women In
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
CHAPTER 6 COMPARISON OF ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN IN THE ILIAD. THE ODYSSEY AND THE MAHABHARATA 199 After analysing the individual women characters in all these epics, it is possible to compare the attitudes towards women and their status in the two traditions. A) Women in the Greek epics : Critics like J. W. Mackail complain that Homer did not use all his skill in women's portrayal as he used it in the portrayal of men. He comments in Lectures on Greek Poetry— "Homer's women are likewise [like Shakespeare's] remarkable; yet one has the feeling throughout that they are only fragments, sparingly used and jealously scrutinized, of a lost world of poetry that may have held figures as great as those of Gudrun and Brynhild,>of Imogen or Cleopatra. Andromache and Penelope are the only two women in the foremost plane of action. Both are vivid and actual, as fully alive as men among whom they move. Yet in both it seems as if the poet made them live almost against his will, or against the will of his audience; as though he would rather have given, or they would rather have had given them, generalized portraits of the faithful wife and affectionate mother. The recognition of Odysseus by Penelope might have been treated with the same power and tenderness as the parting of Andromache and Hector; Is the Greek feeling about what was proper for women responsible for its being otherwise and have the limits of the harder Hellenic taste lost for us one of the greatest passages in poetry?"^ 200 As Mackail suggests, a sense of inferiority about women, whether they are aristocratic or piebian, is found almost everywhere in the two Greek epics. We find that "hero" has no equivalent feminine gender in the age of heroes. Paul Merchant quotes in his Epic the words of Protagoras— "man is the measure of all things."^ Protagoras suggests that "humans" were important but now we must say that what he seems to have meant is "man" and not "woman" is the measure of all things. The very smallness of the number of women characters in these epics is a measure of the lack of importance given to them. The nature of the Iliad is martial or warlike. The Greek women did not fight like the Amazons did at that time and hence they do not have a prominent role to play in the Iliad. The Iliad is the story of "the wrath of Achilles", and the story of the Trojan war covers a large part of the epic but it ends where the "wrath" theme ends and we do not see the end of the war. Apparently a woman is the cause behind each of the events that give rise to these themes. Achilles was full of wrath because the slave-woman Briseis was taken away from him and the whole war resulted from Paris' abduction of Helen from Menelaus. But when we look more carefully at the two themes, this reasoning seems not only specious but also deliberately misogynistic. Briseis is not important to Achilles as a woman but only because she is the prize. Briseis is a trifle but Briseis seized from Achilles is worth 'seven tripods that have never been on 201 fire, ten talents of gold' and the like. When Agamemnon takes Briseis from him, his honour is openly shamed and, as Bruno Snell says, once honor is destroyed, the moral existence of the loser collapses. Even Agamemnon has taken hold of Briseis only because Chryseis had to be surrendered to her father. Obviously for both the warriors Briseis is only a token of honour and the whole episode illustrates the competition among men for the possession of women, as "prizes", "trophies" or like heads of rare animals on the walls of a hunter. Again, even Helen was not the real cause of the war. She was the point of honour for the two Achaean brothers, the kings. Moreover, throughout the epic it is seen that Hera and Athena are keen on destruction of the city of Troy for avenging themselves. Helen is the excuse, the scapegoat. The story of the golden 'apple of discord' is not related by Homer in the epic but it is in the background and the poet has taken for granted the audience's knowledge of the story. The other probable causes are discussed at the end of the chapter. Helen, Hecuba, Andromache, Briseis, Penelope, Nausicaaa are the prominent women; Calypso and Circe are witch princesses and if we include goddesses among them, Thetis, Aphrodite, Hera and Athena make the list longer. Women are dominant not among mortals but among the immortals. Zeus is sometimes like a henpecked husband before Hera. She borrows charms from Aphrodite and enamours him and then makes him sleep while she manages to bring about Hector's defeat. Athena and Aphrodite often have their own way and interfere in 202 human affairs. Aphrodite rules Paris and Helen. In Book Three she brings Paris to his chamber from the battlefield. She orders Helen to surrender to him there. Helen is most reluctant to do this. Her words express her weariness of him. She hates his cowardice that is disgusting to her especially against the background of the nobility and bravery of Hector. Hector is going to fight and lose his life in the war that is caused by herself and Paris. Yet she has to follow the order of Aphrodite because of her threats. Athena creates an illusion for Hector as if Deiphobus was with him to help him during his fight with Achilles. Hector is deceived and meets his death alone at the hands of Achilles. He might not have been defeated if he were not deceived. The goddesses are as powerful, capricious, jealous and demanding as the gods are, if not more so, but when it comes to women, they have a uniformly inferior status to men as it comes out in the epics. W. E. Gladstone says in Homer. "There is a certain authority of the man over the woman but it does not destroy freedom, or imply the absence either of respect, or of close mental or moral fellowship. Not only the relation of Odysseus to Penelope and of Hector to Andromache but of those Achilles to Briseis, and of Menelaus to returned Helen are full of dignity and attachment. Briseis was but a captive, yet Achilles viewed her as in expectation a wife, called her so, avowed his love for her and laid it down that not he only but every man must love his wife, if he had sense and virtue. Among the Achaeans monogamy is invariable, divorce unknown, incest 203 abhorred It should perhaps be noted as a token of the respect paid to the position of the woman, that these very bad men are not represented as ever having included in their plans the idea of offering violence to Penelope."^ What Gladstone says about the relationship of Hector and Andromache and of Odysseus to Penelope can perhaps be accepted with reservations. The tenderness of the love of the former couple is expressed in their farewell scene. Odysseus pines to go back to Ithaca and refuses Calypso's offer of immortality and eternal youth. But this love is not equal to the devotion of Penelope because the poet's words are— "the nymph was dear to him no longer."'* The words 'no longer' are significant and indicate obviously that she was dear to him earlier. Even though, as Gladstone observes, monogamy was invariable among the Achaeans, such affairs were very common and concubines were customary. J. M. Robertson has noted about Homeric times in A Short History of Morals. "Husbands appear to have indulged largely, and with little or no censure, in concubines. Female captives of the highest rank were treated with great harshness."^ It is also found that all the Greek epic women are very pathetic in the face of war. Helen repents the moment she joined Paris and remembers her child and her husband in Sparta. She can resist neither 204 Paris nor Aphrodite and we are not told whether she had resisted them while in Sparta, whether she was abducted or she eloped. Now she is tired of Paris and yet has to depend on him. She feels repulsion for him because of his cowardice. Her divine beauty is only an object of blame and curse in Troy because of the war. Hecuba is a helpless mother trying to appeal to Hector to desist from fighting. She is far less effective or decisive than Kunti and even Gandhari. Andromache's devotion for her husband and her child are exemplary but she lives under the shadow of the awareness of the impending catastrophe that she is helpless to avoid. The famous scene of Hector's farewell reveals her sweetness and tenderness but pathos is the keynote of her character. Thetis is a goddess but seems more human with her constant motherly concern and anxiety for Achilles. She presses Hephaestus to make an armour for her son and pleads for him in heaven. None of these women are independent or powerful. They do not take any decisions, obey men and face the consequences of the war meekly. It seems that a woman was respected and loved in the family as wife, mother and daughter but when she lost her husband or father or "male support" in a war she became a captive, a slave. In his Evolution of Hindu Moral Ideals P. S. Shivaswamy Aiyer quotes T.