ESSAYS ON WOMEN & GENDER IN ANTIQUITY

The Rape of Proserpina, Bernini 1621-22 (w/ pomegranate stock image edit)

 

            The myth of Persephone and Hades is arguably one of the most well-known of Greek stories; easily interpreted as an explanation of the changing seasons for the archaic Grecians. In fact, the story is so popular as to even appear in picture books for children, further “softening” the myth for younger generations. But why should this be alarming? It’s not immediately apparent due to normalization of violence in our culture, but this story is about the kidnapping, rape, and forced marriage  of Persephone to her kidnapper-rapist-uncle. Even her mother Demeter has no choice when Zeus, king of gods, suggests that his brother Hades court her by taking the maiden of Spring by force, as her mother wouldn’t approve. This paper explores this violent use of transition, pointing to the dual symbolism of the pomegranate as a key device for sterility within the marriage of Hades and Persephone as described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, as well as using that device for equating the union with death.

In archaic Greece, the transition from maidenhood to marriage was fraught with danger. The time of greatest public visibility for a female, the kore, or maiden, is commonly represented as modest, nubile, and beautiful; in a state of potential desirability to men. Incidentally, kore is an alternative name for Persephone; the archetypical maiden: the very image of a 14 year old girl who has recently become a woman and is ready for marriage. Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, is reluctant to allow courting with her daughter, and protects her, hiding her away from the other gods in order to keep her innocent, happy, and free. The parallel seen here could be a human mother fending off courtiers, as well as offering protection from the harsh realities of marriage before she is ready to enter that world- particularly concerning marriage’s association with death.

Alas, wifehood is just as dangerous as Demeter believed. Greek females are not known by name outside the oikos (household), as it is considered disrespectful for strangers to know it and an insult if it is repeated, or if used to refer to her son (most insulting when said between males to suggest an unknown father). The father was considered by men to be the primary parental figure: women didn’t contribute to the makeup of a child at all, only being the receptacle for the male’s seed. And a wife isn’t even considered part of the family until she provides a legitimate child to the household; to take that step and have a child she has to beat two of the largest statistical causes of female deaths at the same time: undernourishment and childbirth, the main reasons for marriage being equated with death. Then she is expected to conserve resources within the oikos, weave, and instill her sons with a sense of honor, while her daughters are raised with a sense of shame. All are significant contributions to the economic state of the oikos and community, but wives were still portrayed in misogynistic literature as a threat to the reputation and integrity of the household.

The non-consensual union of Hades and Persephone was the epitome of the belief that marriage equaled death. Hades was himself the god of death, presiding over the underworld and the earth’s riches. He asked Zeus for Persephone’s hand; who must’ve thought him a good fit, as he approved. But Demeter, he knew, would not; and so Zeus effectively gave his own brother permission to take her without either woman’s permission. Demeter turns her back from her beloved daughter for a moment….and Persephone is snatched from the field of flowers she was in and pulled screaming into the underworld, then raped by her own uncle. They “marry”, and Persephone falls into a deep funk, the trauma settling in. Then the pomegranate.

Demeter has been searching for almost a year looking for her daughter. She has neglected feeding the earth until she finds Persephone. Helios the sun, who sees everything, tells the grieving mother where her daughter is, and she flies in a rage to Zeus, demanding her daughter back. Zeus sends Hermes to the underworld to get her back, and the girl is overjoyed at the thought of seeing her mother again. She has not eaten either- knowing that food from the underworld has the power to make you stay. Hades soons remedies that, and hands his child-wife a pomegranate under the pretense of celebration and promises of treasures. She ate four or six seeds (depending on the translation) and doomed herself to the same amount of months in the underworld, ensuring that she will never again “stay forever/by the side of revered Demeter of the dark robe”.

Pomegranates, because of their large abundance of seeds, are very often considered to have represented fertility, and therefore Hades must have believed that his “seed” has entered his wife’s womb, and therefore she must stay with him some of the time. On the other hand, pomegranates were often used as contraceptive devices in ancient Greece, and so are more likely to have represented sterility. This is backed up by the marriage-death dynamic to which Hades, as god of death and husband to a fertility goddess, gives evidence to.

Through the use of rape as a transition from maidenhood to wifehood and the key symbolism of the pomegranate within the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the myth of Persephone being kidnapped by Hades, despite being interpreted as an explanation of the changing seasons, is quite obviously a rape and kidnapping story. Done by Hades to Persephone, this rape culturized “ideal” is mainly the reason Demeter, the maiden’s mother, attempts to keep her from marriage. She mourns for her daughter 4-6 months out of the year after her daughter eats the seeds of the pomegranate given to her by her uncle-husband, which keeps her with him most of the year, as well as designating the pomegranate as a device for equating marriage with death.

 

 

             Bibliography

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Persephone

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/resources/research-papers/history-birth-control-methods-26784.htm