The Origin of Women in Hesiod’s Theogony and Ovid’s Metamorphosis

The Origin of Women

The creational myths about the origin of women are greatly contested on since there is no resolute justification for the facts about how they really came into being. Women are crucial people in the society, this is due to the fact that they play crucial roles like; giving birth to children, they provide companionship and also they nurture homes by making it conducive by preparing meals for their families, cleaning dishes and laundry and other home-oriented tasks. According to (Curley & Dan 384), he opined that there were mortal women who gave birth to children and gave them away to the gods. However, the origin of women brought about the rise of clearly defined roles that were earlier on given randomly to anyone.

Determining the Origin of Women

There are three approaches that one can use to determine the origin of women namely; Aetiological, metaphysical and cosmological of the two theological myths of the Hesiod Theogony and the Ovid Metamorphosis. Therein, the Aetiological aspects of both Hesiod and Ovid denote that women came into existence, Hesiod denotes that man came to be as a result of the Gods creating mankind in Jupiter and Zeus, whereas in Ovid’s mythical theory, he depicts that women originated from Jupiter and Zeus. They were punished as a result of disobeying the gods. There came floods that wiped out human beings, therein, the surviving humans gave rise to the various generations that came into existence (Wise and Lauren 34). The Metaphysical similarities of both the Ovid and Hesiod, Ovid says that his father came from cyme in Aeolis whereas Hesiod’s father came from Asia main world waters and went finally to Greece.

Conclusion

There are various similarities pertaining Hesiod and Ovid’s theory on women’s origin, they both insinuate that they came into existence by originating from either Jupiter or Zeus and were both punished and as a result, some died while others survived and brought about the growth of the various generations.

Work Cited

Curley, Dan. “Ovid and Hesiod: The Metamorphosis of the Catalogue of Women by Iohannis Ziogas.”American Journal of Philology 138.2 (2017): 382-384.

Wise, Jessica Lauren. Gender, Rhetoric, Authority: Ovid’s Fasti and Augustan thought on Women. Diss. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017.