The Tradition of Women and Ownership

Last week as we discussed the female characters in myth, beginning with Persephone, the issue of the etymology of the word "rape" as connected to "theft" left me thinking about the many different ways in which thievery takes place in regard to the women in these stories.  When gods intervene in the lives of women like Persephone, Daphne, Psyche, and Eurydice, these girls are quite literally stolen from the fathers and husbands who can claim ownership over them.  However, it seems in each of these tales that some thing else is stolen as well. These female characters are robbed of a choice about the direction of their young lives. They are robbed of happiness.  They are robbed of the innocence they are depicted as personifying at the start of their respective myths.

As I drove to school last Tuesday morning, I was reminded that these issues of ownership and womanhood, which seem so antiquated to western women who are by and large free to plan their lives and pick their own partners, are very much alive in other parts of the world.   The reminder came through a story on the radio that caught my attention. NPR's All Things Considered was doing a segment on child brides focusing on young women and girls who had been given away to men by parents who felt, for a variety of reasons, it was time for them to be taken care of by someone else. When I went to find the segment to write this post, I found yet another on child brides in Yemen  accompanied by startling images.  It can be difficult to listen to the stories of these girls, especially when one considers that they are the same age or younger than peers, younger siblings or cousins, and for me, all of you.  Despite this difficulty, I hope you will listen, look at the images, and read the associated stories.

I meet many students who have a distaste for the female characters in stories of the past.  It is common, and frankly all too easy, for us to judge them as weak, naive, or unable to think for themselves.  However, this is because we will never be owned and given away or stolen the way they have been. I have long felt these characters are deserving of our empathy and serve as a reminder of how far western women have come. As for the girls who still live in societies with similar doctrines regarding women's roles in determining the course of their own lives, their true stories remind me of all the choice, happiness, and innocence that is still stolen from so many young women today.