Stealing from the Household
Jane Gardner describes the Athenian
polis
as being "made up of discrete competing units, the oikoi,
. . . [which] were constantly watching each other to make sure
that no one tried to get more than a fair share - and constantly
trying to get it for themselves."2
In such an atmosphere, it is easy to imagine the suspicion that
might pervade all relations between oikoi and even those
relations within it. One concern of the paranoid husband would
be guarding the household goods. The sticky-fingered slave is
a ubiquitous type in comedy, but Aristophanes adds the concept
of the thieving wife who steals for a different reason: to share
the food with her lover.
Although accusations of theft
of the household goods do not loom as large in the Lysistrata
as do other issues, it is telling that, as Gardner points out,
in the first few lines of the play, Lysistrata remarks that men
believe women to be "clever villains." The reference
here is ironic since Lysistrata is lamenting that women are not,
in fact, cleverly villainous enough to sneak out of the house
in a timely manner to attend her meeting to coordinate the sex
strike. This opening scene is quite reminiscent of Dikaiopolis'
first appearance in the Acharnians and Praxagora's in
the Ecclesiazusae; apparently Aristophanes thought punctuality
to be a problem for both genders. It is significant, however,
to have a woman complaining about members of her own sex in these
terms. She is laying the groundwork for the "bad behavior"
of the women in the rest of the play and their ultimate theft
of political power.
The most elaborated example
of the suspected propensity of wives to steal from their husbands
occurs in the Thesmophoriazusae during the speech of the First
Woman who brings charges against Euripides. As you recall, in the Thesmophoriazusae,
Euripides has been informed of a plot that is afoot among women
against him. Euripides forces his relative Mnesilochus to dress
in drag in order to infiltrate the women's meeting and to speak
on his behalf. The First Woman complains that, not only has Euripides
made men so suspicious that they lock women into the women's
quarters, they also seal the cupboards in the house with seals
which can't be duplicated.3
It is unclear from this reference what the women in the play
intend to do with the goods if they could get them; perhaps they
are sneaking a little something extra or perhaps they are legitimately
griping that they can't get to items which they need.
Another line, this time from
the mouth of Mnesilochus, Euripides' mole, casts light on the
First Woman's complaint: while cataloging the supposed tricks
of women which Euripides hasn't revealed, Mnesilochus describes
how the women give meat to their pimps and then claim that the
cat has eaten it.4
This clearly takes the theft of household goods out of the category
of harmless "shoplifting" and puts it into the realm
of oikos-threatening sexual activity. As we will see again
below in the discussion of the Ecclesiazusae, theft by
women in Aristophanes rarely occurs in a sexually innocent context.
There seems to be an understanding that a woman who is willing
to violate the oikos in one way will quickly find other
ways to compound her offense.
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