Gender and Power in Mythological Texts

Corinth . You must go into exile

and take those two children of yours with you (Johnston , Nd

To Medea this is dual injustice as she has lost her husband to another woman and for protesting has been expelled from Corinth . Women in Corinth as the King told Medea had to suffer in silence . They had to be redeemed by bearing children for their husbands , through charity , sober behavior and faith . This very lucidly highlights the Greek view that women have no right to protest in case their husband has abandoned them and

have to suffer in solitude . The key issue is thus lack of choice to women while not for men

Medea however did not find it honorable to suffer in silence . Thus on escaping from Corinth , she does what only a woman scorned can do , kill her children to cause pain to her husband who has abandoned her . In this act too , she represents perhaps her helplessness . Devoid of divorce as an option , a woman has to only undertake extreme measures to symbolize the pain that she would like to give to her husband which would have been other wise possible to express through divorce , implying the ability to live independently . Since the Greek did not foster an independent role for women , this choice was denied to Medea and the only way to express her anguish happened to be that of taking the lives of her children

Here she attempts to defy the presumption that women cannot think of living with more than one person (Foley , 2002 , 81 . In return to her fidelity to one man , a woman is granted security from the danger of the battlefield . It is the role of a man to provide safety to women , while the latter is confined to the home and hearth...