Adultery (con't.)
The unbridled libido of women
and their willingness to exercise it outside the bonds of wedlock
is seen again in the Thesmophoriazusae in Mnesilochus'
speech (Mnesilochus is the one who was dressed in drag by Euripides)
to the women. In his role as a woman he recounts a fictitious
affair that he had, emphasizing that he had been involved with
his lover since the tender age of seven and that the tryst occurred
three days after his wedding. He also adds the compelling details
of the lengths to which he went to deceive his naïve husband:
pretending a stomachache, he told his husband that he was going
to the outhouse. He then explicitly describes his intercourse
with his lover while the deceived husband is inside fixing a
remedy for his stomach. Here the contrast between the treacherous
wife and the duped husband is deliberately highlighted, but we
must remember the speaker's agenda and the fact that this is
not a woman at all, even within the reality of the play.
In her apostrophe to the lamp,
which I mentioned above, Praxagora in the Ecclesiazusae
praises it as a partner in crime within the context both of theft
and adultery. She also brings in another element which might
loosen any inhibition that might stand in the way of a would-be
adulteress: consumption of alcohol. Not only is wine one of the
items being stolen in her first speech, women's fondness for
drink comes up again in the assembly-rehearsal scene. Likewise
in the Thesmophoriazusae, there is considerable drinking
done during the women's meeting and a wineskin is even held hostage
at one point, with its owner screaming for its safety, claiming
that it's her daughter. Mnesilochus also has some mock-tragic
lines in this scene, lamenting both women's guile and their insatiable
appetite for alcohol.
It is clear that the conjunction
of these misdemeanors is not coincidental. Athenian men feared
that their wives were possessed of a general lasciviousness and
desire to drink and the combination of these faults might naturally
lead to adulterous affairs. Not only did adultery open up the
possibility of illegitimate children who might make claims on
the resources of the oikos, but it always produced a situation
where an outside male had a direct line of access to the oikos
through the woman. Either one of these situations was something
to be feared and guarded against, but stress could be somewhat
relieved through the medium of comedy.
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