the positions of men and women

• Their positions, their responsibilities to each other, and what happen when these go wrong are common themes of tragedy
• Only 1/32 (Sophocles’ Philoctetes) surviving plays have no female characters 
• Tragedians frequently selected myths for their plays which involve gender conflict 
• Bacchae depicts a breakdown in these social codes, since the women of Thebes have abandoned their duties to their families to worship Dionysus
• The ideal respectable Greek women was to live their lives inside the house, away from public view (unlikely that this was realistic for poorer women, who needed to work)
• The bacchants have left their homes to live outside 
• In his opening speech, Dionysus describes the women as sitting on ‘bare rock under the green pine trees’ (38;29) - highlights the degree to which they have abandoned their inhibitions 
• This is emphasised in the 1st Messenger speech 
• While the Messenger describes the miracles they perform, they also show the negative consequences of women abandoning their position 
• e.g. some of the women are nursing wild animals, to replace the babies they have left (699-702; 589-92)
• The image of them holding wolves or deer to their breast is eerie, and makes the audience think of the baby left behind 
• The idea that Bacchism can threaten family life is made explicit when the women snatch children from the homes of the villagers (754;628)
• Women are meant to protect children, but the influence of Dionysus causes the maenads to disrupt families, including their own 
• While Pentheus thinks it’s wrong that the women are having sex, their actions do have an impact on their married lives
• The maenadism of Bacchae relies on the breaking down of norms that society is founded on 
• It is also an exploration of the tensions in a patriarchal system 
• One could see Pentheus’ fate as a warning of either what can happen if women aren’t controlled properly, or of the dangers of excessively suppressing them
• Oedipus the King presents a more positive depiction of gender relations, since Oedipus and Jocasta’s marriage is presented as one of mutual respect
• Oedipus states he has a higher opinion of Jocasta that of the chorus of elders (700;770-1)
• This overturned any assumption that the Greeks always thought women were inferior to men
• Jocasta’s concerned for her husband’s wellbeing
• The couple listen attentively to each other and speak with affection
• Creon even comments that Oedipus echoes Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus tells the princess Nausicaa of the importance of like-mindedness in creating a perfect marriage 
• Nothing is better or stronger than when two people, like-minded in their thoughts, keep a house as husband and wife 

  Odyssey, 6.182-4
• Odysseus is married to Penelope, and this relationship is a model of a successful marriage where the woman’s role is admired
• The audience’s knowledge of Oedipus’ identity means that the depiction of a harmonious couple is tainted by horror, since we know they are mother and son 
• Oedipus' happy marriage, like his prosperous career, makes his fall from grace even more pitiful, as he discovers that his whole life has been based on lies
• It is a deliberate stroke of irony that the happiest marriage in Greek tragedy is the one that never should have been allowed