The Archaic and Homeric writing periods are, arguably, massively different form one another in both writing styles and stance on society. Societal views on women changed drastically between the two writing periods in Ancient Greece, from blatant misogyny to a sort of passive non-belligerence. Through these texts, we can surmise how society, specifically men, felt about women and their positions in life, as well as the issues that these women experienced and even brings to mind the question of how they were expected to react to situations versus how they were made to act. Even so, The Theogony and The Odyssey allows the reader to explore how these two authors and their time periods felt about their women.
Women, as a sex, are thought of in completely different ways within the two different stories. In The Theogony, women were created by Zeus as an ultimate means to an end. Zeus wanted some kind of punishment against men and Prometheus for both tricking him with the sacrificial offerings and stealing the creation of fire. Therefore, Zeus creates an evil as revenge against
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During the Homeric Age, women were thought to have more control over their bodies and choices because they were not directly related to laws and anything outside of the household oikos. However, during the shift in periods, the polis became more important than just the individual households. As the community as a whole became more important, women’s roles in these communities and the society began to become more directly effected because they had more visible roles within it. They were also more directly effected by the laws created by men because of this newfound visibility and therefore began to lack control over their own bodies and what freedoms they were allowed outside of the individual oikos, if they were allowed outside of it in the first