The Mythological Pursuit of Justice. Legendary Women of the past and female exclusion from power today

Introduction

“While I live, at least, a woman shall not rule¹ ”. This is a powerful statement. It mirrors a society within which women were slaves without even knowing it. Creon’s words might sound profoundly outrageous, unjust and misogynist to our advanced societies. However, there still exists an element of continuity between the ancient reality of the Polis and the modern world. Such congruency can be found in numbers, for instance, that are low if they refer to the women involved in politics today, and whilst it is real that women have though large representation in certain governments, it is also true to specify that such situation occurs where parliaments do not entirely have control on the power². Underrepresentation was and it is still real: but from where did such inequalities come from? As many other examples, the Ancient World usually provides valid explanations to modern queries. More specifically, it demonstrates that human fears have not changed in time. Oppression has always manifested in order to rein potentially powerful groups, and exploitation ultimately occurs because the latter’s characteristics could possibly threaten the supremacy of the “winners of the game”. And as far as women are concerned, they are the losers, whose voices have been silenced since the times of the Ancient Greeks³. However, subjugation can also lead to rebellion⁴, and if this is the case, the latter spontaneously aims at the pursuit of a natural sense of righteousness, a calling that stems from a human desire of well-being that even comes before the justice related to positive law⁵.

Mythology offers various examples of memorable women that struggled for their natural law: among them, it is impossible to forget Antigone, Medea, and Clytemnestra, three rebels that were depicted as monstrous creatures, and although Penelope’s faithfulness contrasts sharply with their representation, it is profoundly connected to them. This research endeavours to explain that the stories of those legendary women of the past should not be neglected, since they provide valid examples that clarify the reasons for female exclusion from power. Moreover, it is therefore also natural to wonder why their femininity was ripped away from them. Antigone, Clytemnestra and Medea are criminals, and their outrageous actions go against natural and positive law. They are not women. Furthermore, in order to give them back their womanhood, they must be disempowered⁶. Further reflections will seek to find answers to the main question of the research: how can their stories contribute to explain women’s exclusion from power today? In the first part, the essay will focus on Antigone’s pursuit of justice in Sophocles’ play, through an analysis linked to Hegel’s concept of Sittlichkeit and to Bachofen’s philosophical thought. Afterwards, Medea, and Clytemnestra’s stories will follow, and, in conclusion, the example of Penelope will demonstrate another kind of rebellion.

Hegel’s Sittlichkeit and Bachofen’s maternal law: Antigone

Looks can be deceiving. As it has ubiquitously manifested in time, traditions and culture have obscured the essence of life, the symbol. The latter contains our roots, and the spiritual truth of history⁷, which deeply lies at the core of it, whilst the vicissitudes of the myth are mere superficiality⁸. According to Bachofen, myth was imagined as “the exegesis of the symbol⁹ ”, namely what precedes the latter and ultimately clarifies its substance¹⁰, and it is ultimately a matriarchal affair¹¹. The symbol itself emerges from the core of existence, which has been overshadowed by societies and patriarchalism, that is, maternal law¹². The latter lies substantially in natural law, but with reference to a certain type of ancient power that precedes the Rousseaunian reasonable justice¹³. In Das Mutterrecht¹⁴, Bachofen truly elaborates a dialectic between the earthbound and physical Mother-Right and a paternal positive normativity that in the course of time imposed its rational supremacy over chthonic law¹⁵.

This argument was terrifically concretised by Sophocles thousands of years before in his illustrious play, Antigone. Her words remarkably clarify the meaning of her rebellion as well as the nature of the justice she looks for: “I was born to join in love- not to hate ¹⁶ ”. Antigone speaks through the language of love, in the name of dike ¹⁷. She claims her natural rights, which inevitably coincide with maternal law and therefore, the necessity to repossess those entitlements that naturally belong to humans.

Antigone’s misadventures articulate in a play that narrates a story of injustice and a lost battle. However, it is a myth of rebellion, and a remarkable example of pursuing justice. Her tragedy revolves around the agonising law imposed by King Creon that prevents her from burying the corpse of her brother, Polynices: the myth divulges an excruciating narration of a woman that could not give dignity back to her dead sibling. However, the symbol silently reveals a collision between two kinds of justice, or rather, positive and natural law. The first one is embodied by Creon, who is the patriarchal figure of the law of Zeus, which is artificial and manmade, and most importantly, he has the power¹⁸. On the other hand, when Antigone decides to break Creon’s law, her fight for justice morphs into a rebellion against that secular masculine law, although such efforts eventually lead to her death. But what is Antigone’s justice? Here, the answer explicitly lies in her “must”. More specifically, when Ismene is incredulous of her courage to go against the order, she says, “Yes!... he is my brother…I must bury himself”¹⁹: it is evident that Antigone’s struggle arises from an inner sense of duty and justice that results from an unwritten and divine law. It is the same law that “is alive, not just today or yesterday: it lives forever”²⁰, and it is substantially what Bachofen names maternal or Demetrian law. Her “must” comes from a chthonic and feminine justice that derives from the Earth and is concretised in the “law of the shadows”, and ultimately contrasts the “law of the day” of Creon²¹, invented by mankind over the course of history. Nevertheless, as far as Antigone’s rebellious behaviour is concerned, it is clear that her decision to bury the head of her brother against the law is perceived as an irrational and insane action: considering Ismene’s words, “Then go if you must, wild, irrational as you are”²². As it will be further observed, whenever these women attempt to seize the power or break the law, they are considered fool, mad creatures.

Although Hegel does not write about maternal law, in the Phenomenology of Spirit he acknowledges Antigone’s call for chthonic law: “The manifest spirit has the root of its force in the subterranean world, the people’s certainty, sure of itself and assuring itself, has the truth of its oath, which binds all into one, solely in the mute and unconscious substance of all, in the waters of forgetfulness ²³ ”. According to Hegel, the same dialectic between chthonic and positive law can be found in a second dichotomy, or rather, between the state, which expresses equality and rationality, and on the other hand family, that concerns life, love and death²⁴. More precisely, Sittlichkeit separates these two institutions, that is, the political versus the private right: in the Phenomenology, Hegel describes such term as “the ethical behaviour grounded in custom and tradition and developed through habit and imitation in accordance with the objective laws of the community”²⁵. The law of Sittlichkeit assumes that the ethical life becomes real and concrete only through the actions of the individual and therefore, through history²⁶. The abstract universality of good has no content if held internally to conscience: on the contrary, individuals can only reach freedom through the ethical order and the authentic actions of the citizens that respond to the law²⁷. In practice, Antigone, through the law of Sittlichkeit cancelled the abstraction of morality and transformed her potential being with her action²⁸: the woman responded to the call of the chthonic and eternal law. Hegel asserts that ethical life culminates in the “immediate substantiality of the unit of the family”²⁹, which is the symbol of love, in contrast to the image of the state that recalls pure reason³⁰. In conclusion, Antigone might be a criminal, and she consciously knows that she is breaking the law. However, by dying for love against the misogynous impositions of Creon, she turns into law, and fulfils her existence through the realisation of moral right.

Clytemnestra and Medea’s fury: against natural law for justice

“Backward flow streams of holy rivers and justice, and all things are being turned back”³¹. Euripides’ lines perfectly depicted an unrighteous truth and bequeathed to our modern world a situation that has not entirely evolved, in which the sacred feminine justice and chthonic law are hard to achieve. The protagonist of his play is a monster, a woman that committed the most dreadful crimes, Medea is a beast. She is the murderer of Glauce, who was the cause of her husband’s rejection and madness, Jason, and Creon. However, her vengeance is completed only when she makes an outrageous decision: she kills the children that she fathered with Jason.

Mythology portrays Clytemnestra as an agent of evil as well. Betrayed by her husband Agamemnon, who sacrifices their daughter and brings home princess Cassandra from the trojan war, she takes revenge and assassinates them. Clytemnestra is, as well as Medea, ultimately a masculine character: in Aeschylus’s tragedy she represents a completely deranged man and a homicidal maniac. However, in Oresteia she attempts to overturn the patriarchal model of society to a matriarchal one, in which she refuses to accept her husband’s subjugation and moreover, she does not renounce her sexuality during the period when her husband is absent³². The rebellion of Clytemnestra and Medea fundamentally allows them to forsake their female roles in their misogynist societies. When they assume power, they subsequently terminate to be women³³. Nevertheless, at the same time they regain possession of their feminine features once their vengeance is completed³⁴. Clytemnestra awakens her femininity when her son Oreste nearly kills her, by showing him her breast and saying: “wait, my son - no respect for this, my child? The breast you held, drowsing away the hours / soft gums tugging the milk that made you grow?”³⁵. The same return to womanhood before death is captured in Antigone: although her suicide might deceive and represent a masculine action, Sophocles imagines the woman in the tomb dressed as a wife, clearly evoking her femininity, that cannot escape both from her and Clytemnestra³⁶. Whenever they attempt to reject their feminine gender role, they are obliged to come back to their womanly characters: for this purpose dramaturgs hint at symbols of femininity such as the house or the sensual body of the woman, clearly alluding to the fact that women are unable to rebel or neglect their female roles. Medea and Clytemnestra’s monstrous depiction, in the final analysis, reflects the fact that, rebellion from patriarchy is a bestial action, and in addition to this, when women revolt, they become subsequentially the most irrational creatures.

It is also essential to examine the deep reason for their fury. Focusing on Medea, although it is easy to recall female rebellious figures in Greek mythology that engage in acts of deviance, she is probably the most violent and jarring character of all. The murder of her children provokes a shocking reaction in the spectator, who struggles to justify her behaviour. The vengeance of Medea is completely unnatural, it completely goes against natural law. A mother that kills her progeny is the emblem of inhumanity and absence of love. It is an explicit expression of refusal of maternal law. Nevertheless, Medea’s brutal decision becomes secretly justifiable after evaluating her frustration by the fact that her natural rights were firstly violated by Jason. His lack of love translates into the absence of the law of love, which is chthonic law, and ultimately provokes desire of revenge in her heart.

Antigone, Medea and Clytemnestra’s rebellions are ultimately caused by the violation of their natural rights. Their reactions suggest that, whenever maternal law is denied to individuals, the latter would be even pushed to commit horrendous actions in order to restore their righteous original chthonic rights. Natural law cannot be simply denied to humans.

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¹ Sophocles (c.496 B.C.–406 B.C.), Antigone, The Harvard Classics

² Beard M, (2018), Women and Power: A Manifesto, Profile Books LTD, p.85

³ Beard M. (2018), cit., p.6

⁴ Bloch E. (1987), Natural Law and Human Dignity, the MIT Press, p.7

⁵ Bloch E. (1987), cit. p. 1

⁶ Beard M. (2018), cit. p. 59

⁷ Stocking G. W. (1968), Review of Myth, Religion, and Mother Right: Selected Writings of J. J., in American Anthropologist, 70, p.1189

⁸ Ibidem

⁹ Bachofen J.J. (1859), Versuch Iiber die Grdbersymbolik der Alten, Basle

¹⁰ Altmann A. (1945 ), Symbol and Myth, in Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 20:76, p.162

¹¹ Conrad P. (2005), The Pull of the Greeks, [online], available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/23/classics.jeanettewinterson [last accessed on 10 April 2019]

¹² Bloch E. (1987)., cit., p. 112

¹³ Bloch E. (1987), cit. p.113

¹⁴ See Bachofen J. J. (1861), Das Mutterrecht: eine Untersuchung? ber die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religi?sen und rechtlichen Natur, Stuttgart

¹⁵ Valdez D. (2009), Bachofen's Rome and the Fate of the Feminine Orient, in Journal of the History of ideas, 70:3, p. 422

¹⁶ Sophocles (c.496 B.C.–406 B.C.), cit.

¹⁷ The goddess of justice according to Greek Mythology

¹⁸ Douzinas C. & Warrington, R. (1994), Justice Miscarried: Ethics and Aesthetics in Law, Harvester Wheatsheaf, p.31

¹⁹ Sophocles (c.496 B.C.–406 B.C.), cit., 71

²⁰ Sophocles (c.496 B.C.–406 B.C.), cit., 454-456

²¹ Bloch E. (1987), cit. p. 120

²² Sophocles (c.496 B.C.–406 B.C.),.98-99

²³ Hegel G. W. F. (1807), The Phenomenology of Spirit, La Nuova Italia Editrice, translated by Enrico de Negri, (1973), II, p. 356

²⁴ Douzinas C. & Warrington R. (1994), cit. p. 43

²⁵ Kain O. J., (1993), Marx and Modern Political Theory: From Hobbes to Contemporary Feminism, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 128.

²⁶ Douzinas C. & Warrington R. (1994), cit.

²⁷ Ibidem

²⁸ Ibidem

²⁹ Van den Berge L. (2017), Sophocles’ Antigone and the promise of ethical life: tragic ambiguity and the pathologies of reason, Law and Humanities, 11:2, p.222

³⁰ Ibidem

³¹ Euripides (485 a.C.- 406 a.C.), Medea, translated by Lushing C. A. E., 410-411

³² Cavallaro D. (1995), I sogni di Clitennestra: The Oresteia according to Dacia Maraini, in Italica, 73:2, p. 344

³³ Beard M. (2017), cit, p.60

³⁴ Essays, UK (2018), Clytemnestra & Antigone: Inescapable Femininity, [online] available at: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/clytemnestra-antigone-inescapable-8407.php#citethis [last accessed on 12 April 2019]

³⁵ Ibidem

³⁶ Ibidem