‘Owning your space’ can be interpreted in many different metaphorical ways, but it is also interesting to examine this concept in its literal sense. Having one’s own space is often deemed to be empowering, but can be limiting if one is not respected outside this space. Women in ancient Greece and Rome were largely confined to the domestic sphere in terms of both power and in day to day life. This has a particular impact on the stories of Psyche and Medea.
Apuleius, a Roman novelist, tells the story of Psyche, a woman so beautiful that she attracts the anger of Venus, who commands her son Cupid to make her fall in love with something horrible as revenge. Cupid himself falls in love with her, and whisks her away to a magical palace. He only ever visits Psyche at night to protect his identity, as he cannot allow rumours of their union to reach his mother. He also denies Psyche any contact with the outside world until she begs him to let her sisters visit, asking him to ‘restore her spirit’. Indeed, constant isolation with the only relief coming in the form of an unknown husband must take a huge psychological toll. Cupid paternalistically assumes that a lavish home and the promise of a child are sufficient compensation for lack of freedom. Psyche is pleased by the promise of a child, as any good Roman woman should be, but is still rightly upset to be living in a gilded cage.
Psyche is not only physically confined but caught between the bullying behaviour of both her husband and her sisters. The latter are eager to expose Psyche for not knowing who her husband is and steal her riches. When Psyche asks that her sisters might visit, Cupid profusely warns her that her sisters are plotting against their marriage. While this is indeed the case, Cupid is trying to protect himself more than Psyche, attempting to turn her against her sisters for his own gain. If he truly respected Psyche, he would reveal himself to her and trust her with the secret of his identity. Of course, Cupid is not wrong to say that the sisters pose a threat to Psyche, but it is very revealing that he uses gendered language to indicate the sisters’ treachery, calling them ‘dishonest little she-wolves’ and ‘wicked witches’. Interestingly, the sisters’ techniques of subterfuge are frequently described with militaristic language, which a contemporary Roman audience would have perceived as distinctly masculine. They ‘invade’ Psyche’s mind with their prodding about her husband, encroaching on her mental space as well as abusing her hospitality.
Medea, like Psyche’s sisters, is condemned both for her feminine scheming and masculine violence. When her husband leaves her for the local princess, she plans to kill her children in order to take revenge on him. Filicide was the ultimate transgression of ancient womanhood, which Medea makes particularly heinous by carrying it out with a sword, a man’s weapon. Medea is not only ‘other’ for her rejection of her maternal role but also for her foreignness. Jason, her ex-husband, has brought her from her native to Colchis to Corinth. Medea’s first appearance in Euripides’ play is her speech appealing to the Corinthian women for pity and friendship. She begins her speech discussing reputation and the tendency to judge others before knowing their true character, and focuses on the concept of indoor and outdoor space in relation to this. She declares that she has ‘come out of the house’ in order to face the community, as rumour and hostility is fostered ‘among people at the door’.
Medea goes on to comment on the general predicament of women in the ancient world. Indoor space continues to be an important theme when she notes that men are allowed to socialise with a wide circle outside, whereas women tend to stay at home and only see their husband. Medea astutely notes that this lack of freedom is widely considered (primarily by men) as a fair price to pay for safety. However, Medea claims that she would ‘rather stand three times in the line of battle than give birth once’. This is a striking criticism of the paternalism of men (including Cupid) to assume that safety is adequate compensation for confinement, as safety in the home was far from guaranteed. Natal healthcare was poor in the ancient world, so childbirth could be just as deadly as warfare.
What is amazing about Medea’s speech is that it was written by a man in the fifth century BCE. It is disputed whether Euripides’ portrayal of Medea is protofeminist or misogynistic, as he emphasises Medea’s evilness both through attributing it to femininity (scheming and poison) and gender non-conformity (killing one’s own children with a sword). Obviously, like Psyche’s sisters, Medea is objectively a villain, and it is fair to condemn her violence. However, the way in which Euripides does this plays into misogynistic tropes. On the other hand, Euripides creates a very intricate and compelling portrait of his female protagonist. She is a complex character whom we are irresistably drawn to despite the fact that she is certainly in the wrong for how she behaves. Even though modern society has moved drastically from the predicament of ancient women that Euripides describes through Medea, the desire for freedom and indignation against oppression are vividly relevant today. It is fascinating that a man was so perceptive as to the issues that women face over two thousand years before the word ‘feminism’ was coined. Interestingly, Euripides’ analysis of Medea’s bad situation can even be read as intersectional. After Medea describes the general plight of women, she tells the Corinthian women that she has it worse than them, as while they all lack the same freedom from domesticity, the Corinthian women have the security or living among their family and knowing people whom they may call friends. Medea, on the other hand, is ‘lonely without a city’ and fears judgement from unfamiliar people. Because her husband has abandoned her, she has no support at all. She is therefore affected by the intersection of misogyny and xenophobia.
Thanks to the second wave of feminism, the home is now not as strongly considered the woman’s domain, and we now have far more freedom than Psyche and Medea could ever have dreamed of. To honour them and every woman, fictional or real, who has ever been subjugated by the expectation to stay within the home, we should own the spaces we already have, while seeking to go beyond them and be respected wherever we may go.
