THE GLORY OF HERA
Greek Mythology and the Greek Family
544 Pages
Beacon Press
Princeton University Press
Published 1971, 1992, 2016
Copyright 1968
SYNOPSIS
The mother-son relationship is the focus of this major study of the relation between Greek family life and Greek mythology. Greek women married early, were excluded from public life and the social life of Greek men, and had little protection; yet females figure prominently in Greek mythology and the maternal goddesses are often represented as powerful and aggressive. The myths of a society are generated out of and maintained by the most common familial experiences in the society. The general reader and the scholar will find a study dependent upon a sustained sociological and psychological investigation of myth by Freud, Harrison and others, and an original addition to that continuing inquiry.
REVIEWS
"This deeply probing and elegantly written book interprets the charged sexual structure of the ancient Greek family and compares ancient narcissism with that of contemporary middle-class America."
Publishers Weekly
“The role of homosexuality in society, fatherless families, working mothers, women's status, and violence, male pride, and male bonding--all these find their place in Slater's analysis, so honestly and carefully addressed that we see our own societal dilemmas reflected in archaic mythic narratives all the more clearly.”
Richard P. Martin, Princeton University
EXCERPTS
“The Greeks were quarrelsome as friends, treacherous as neighbors, brutal as masters, faithless as servants, shallow as lovers—all of which was in part redeemed by their intelligence and creativity.”
“Despite the patriarchal superstructure we find on Olympus, the goddesses are more intimately involved in the Iives of men than are the gods. In particular, the enduring wrath of Hera is far more often the mainspring of mythological action than are the brief tantrums of Zeus, and has more far-reaching consequences.”
“Sex segregation, carried to as great an extreme as was true of fifth century Athens, is an expensive social pattern. It interferes with many natural rhythms and responses and is enormously inconvenient in daily life. It tends to breed fear and mistrust between the sexes, which leads to the subordination and derogation of one or the other.”