Why are mother-daughter bonds especially strong in Greek mythology?

Answer 1

Well, mostly they are not. Mother-child bonds of any type were downplayed strongly in favor of the male as the real and only parent (look at the Orestia by Aeschylus). In medical writings, women were written as only being the vessel to nurture the seed of men, and contributing nothing but nutrition to procreation. Early people might have been matriarchal, but the classic Greeks were obsessively patriarchal.

In myth, you have Demeter refusing to bring spring to the world because her daughter has been stolen... Mother-daughter bonds could be seen as playing strong roles because of the aliention of both women from the politics and dominant culture of Greek society. Women were usually kept heavily segregated, more so in wealthier households.

But there are some examples of very strong mother-child bonds, mostly in Greek tradegy though, which keep in mind was written by men. In Euripedes's "Medea", Medea is strongly connected to her children, she touches them and smells them and is nearly driven mad at the thought of killing them, but her pride does win out and she kills them as revenge against Jason. Also, look at Hecuba and Andromache in Euripedes's "Trojan Women" and "Hecuba". Hecuba in "Trojan Women" is broken down completely at the losses of her children until she is reduced to a sobbing mass. Andromache must give up her only child to be flung from the walls of Troy. And in "Hecuba" Hecuba launches a vicious attack to avenge her dead son. Why are mother-child bonds (or portrayed as so...male writters writing about women, so this is not authentic female experience, but the male version of it) so important? Because children were what women in the Greek world were expected to do. If you were a wife in a fairly wealthy home, you weaved, tended the house, and made babies. Sometimes the mother actually cared for the child but other times she handed it over to a nurse/slave.

So when compared to Roman mother/child bonds (which were usually portrayed as non-existent, the mothers were very harsh and abrupt) then yes, the Greeks had strong mother/child bonds. Compared to many other cultures or the contemporary world...not that strong a bond.

Answer 2

The early Greeks were a matriarchal society.

Answer 3

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