In the ancient Greek society Medea resides in, the gods subsisted and connected with humanity, inductively ordaining sacrifice, escorting seafarers, and sustaining the order of humanity. Obviously deities such as Athena, Apollo, and Zeus were clearly inhumane: as immortal gods, they demanded a Greek culture full of heroism, where men lived masculine lives and the women were never to stand apart from the husband. With the Gods determined the heroic Greek culture of fourth and fifth century B.C. Greece, the Greeks condemned any man or woman who dared to break the traditional roles the gods ordained; for both males and females there was an demanding order that humans were not to disobey.
In Medea, Medea ultimately liberates from her traditional
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In effect, men should harness the women because the gods demand it—men need to be on top. Utilizing Jason to exemplify traditional views of society, Euripides has Jason reason about the sacrifices Medea made for him: “it was love’s ineluctable / Power that compelled you to keep my person safe” Jason verbalizes (ll. 530-31). Jason makes it seem as if Medea had no cull about killing her own brother and his uncle Pelias because the goddess Aphrodite was directing Medea’s affections. What she did for him, then, Medea “did well enough,” he verbally expresses (l. 533). Jason vigorously evidences an overarching cultural conception that Euripides attacks: the conception that the gods determine human life, and among their decrees is that women are subordinate to men.
Attributing control to Zeus and Poseidon, the Greeks believed like Jason that men come under the control of the gods. Of course, it was thus obligatory for men to take control over women, but Euripides questions the thesis that there is a justifiable line of control from the gods to men over women. While much of his audience probably believed that the gods gave men a directive and