Thread by @postclassics

Why Zeus doesn’t cheat on Hera (a #ClassicsTwitter thread 🧵) 1/19

I’ll explain:

First things first, this thread is not a defense of Zeus. In service of understanding Greco-Roman myth a bit better, however, it may be helpful to reframe this conversation so we understand why the ancients feel comfortable depicting their chief god this way.
2/19

Obviously Zeus is famous for his *many* (usually non-consensual) sexual encounters with women who aren’t his wife, Hera. In meme culture in particular, he’s usually contrasted with his “faithful,” often maligned, brother Hades, who “wouldn’t dare cheat on his Persephone.” 3/19

(This comparison is tricky for a number of reasons I won’t explore here. I’ll just focus on the “fidelity” aspect) 4/19

When you say someone is “cheating,” you’re saying that they’ve entered into some kind of relationship agreement that binds both parties to be sexually exclusive with each other and that having sex with another person is a violation of that mutual agreement. 5/19

This is not how ancient marriage works:

Women don’t have the right to sexual exclusivity from their husbands. Adultery, in its original sense, is women sleeping with men who aren’t their husbands and men sleeping with *other men’s wives,* regardless of their marital status. 6/19

This is true in the Bible too—that’s why David can have as many wives and concubines as he wants but becomes an adulterer after he sleeps with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. The idea that men’s “fidelity” is about sexual restraint and not financial support is modern. 7/19

Why doesn’t Zeus cheat on Hera? Because he *can’t* cheat on Hera. 8/19

This is because marriage is, in this context, not fundamentally about emotional commitment to another individual. It’s a property law really. Men have the right to the sexual status of the women in their household. Husbands have it over wives, and fathers over daughters. 9/19

With husbands, the idea is that since there is no sure-fire way of judging paternity, a woman’s sexual fidelity is the only way to ensure that the man is giving his name and property to children that are his. 10/19

In the case of patriarchs, if the sexual status is violated, the perpetrating man has to pay damages (Exodus 22:17). 11/19

Zeus clearly does commit adultery under this definition too, but the grievance for the adultery does not lie with Hera, it lies with the husbands and fathers of the women he sleeps with. 12/19

Essentially, although in modern contexts, adultery and cheating are synonymous in marital relationships, the Greeks and Romans have a radically different concept of the former and no concept of the latter. 13/19

Thinking of it this way, a lot of mythology makes more sense: why is the Odyssey obsessed with Penelope not sleeping with the suitors, while Odysseus spends years sleeping with other women? Why does Hera go after women and their children instead of her “cheating” husband? 14/19

Well the answer is simple, neither Odysseus nor Zeus—from the Greek perspective—did anything wrong. Hera’s going after the mortals because they’re easy targets. 15/19

There are, however, reasons a wife might get mad that her husband is sleeping around. If he is spending time and money on another woman and her children, that is time and money not spent on the “proper” family. 16/19

Also, should the husband decide to leave his wife and marry another sexual partner and legitimize her children, that woman would be exposed to many dangers, physical and socioeconomic. 17/19

In modern contexts, when we mention “monogamy,” we focus on the “mono” part, that you only have “one” partner. But the ancients focused on the “gam”—you can only have one “marriage.”
18/19

To be clear, this is SUPER fucked up. It is clearly the ultimate construct of deeply patriarchal societies that care little about women’s subjectivity. But it is good to remind ourselves how different the ancients were from us. (End)

Sorry if you saw an earlier version of this thread. I realized I could do the topic more justice and took it down. Hopefully this one is clearer and more engaging

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