Xenophon and Aristophanes: The Results of a Husband’s Desire for Control :: Xenophon Aristophanes Power Papers

Xenophon and Aristophanes The Results of a Husbands Desire for ControlIn Greek nightspot women had little control over their lives. A husband wanted to be able to control his wife so she would run his household as he saw fit, so she did not damage his reputation, and so he knew the authorship of his children. A husband wanted the girl to be closely controlled by her get under ones skin before she married for the same reasons. Aristophanes comedies and Xenophons Oeconomicus contain very different depictions of a Greek citizen womans life before she is married and during the condemnation shortly later on she is married. Both the comedies and Oeconomicus examine how girls were educated, how closely guarded they were in their fathers household, and their willingness to deceive their husbands. In Oeconomicus, Xenophon wrote about the ideal girl, but she was overstated in the direction of perfection. In the comedies, however, some the female characters were almost the exact opposite of the girl in Oeconomicus. Even though ideas about how girls were raised and how they be contrived after they were married are very different in Oeconomicus and in Aristophanes comedies, both sets of ideas get at a husbands desire for his wife to draw been closely controlled by her father, and then by him. Aristophanes and Xenophon illustrate this desire by presenting the ideal characteristics of a wife and the characteristics men fear. They also use exaggeration to sort out the distinction between the good wife and the undesirable wife even clearer. Because husbands wanted their wives to be controlled first by their fathers, and then by them, women spent their finished lives under the control of men.There was also a large difference between how closely guarded by her father Ischomachoss wife was, compared to the girls in the comedies. Girls were not only guarded to keep them from learning too much, but they were also guarded to keep them away from men so they would not have sex with or be raped by them. Because if a girl was, and after marriage her husband found out, he would be unsure of the paternity of his children. Ischomachoss wife had previously lived under diligent supervision in order that she might see and hear as little as workable (Oeconomicus, VII, 5). She obviously did not leave her house much if her family was making an attempt to have her see and hear as little as possible.