Lysistrata

3 Pages 736 Words

In the Greek society, the ideal of comedy was formed from the cognitive idea of “this couldn’t happen.” This form was used in the play, Lysistrata, to illustrate this point. Such pessimistic ideas were the sexual content, women as leaders, and a female controlled society.
The idea of sexual control to end a war was far fetched. That by women abstaining from sexual intercourse with their men and denying any such relationships with them that the war between Athenians and Persians would be ceased. This war would have happened with or without the women anyways and would continue till a victor arose from battle. This is shown true by the length of the war and by the treaties that were continuously rejected by Greece. The ideal that was conjured by Lysistrata was one of great ludicrously thought for the social rules of the Greece. Women during this time period played the part of the housewife. Cooking for the men, caring for the children, and attending to the household duties was their main objectives. Women would not have dared such a bold overthrow of social roles.
Secondly, Lysistrata in a role of power, commanding the women as if she were a general of an army is the next abstract in the comedy. As mentioned before, during this time period, women would stay at home and deal with the issues that involved the household and not the outside world. The women were viewed as property of the men and the men were law or “king of their domain” not to be questioned by anyone within their household. Lysistrata taking this role as a commander is not characteristic of women during this era. To convince other women to go against their men and lovers in hopes of ending a war, to ban all men from the acropolis, to plead to the magistrate and still live after that, and finally, bring idealism of democracy to the government. These actions all done by women of this era are simple ridiculous.
Next is the females’ controlling the acropo...