2 - Female Violence towards Women and Girls in Greek Tragedy

Summary

In the extant plays we find examples of wives who react intensely and/or with violence to the introduction of a sexual rival into the household or to their abandonment by their partner for that rival. This chapter fills in the gaps in our understanding of this pattern by taking into account the fragmentary plays in which women enact violence upon other women and girls. This most often occurs in the case of married women who perceive the introduction of a (younger) rival into their household as a threat to their own position and status, and it frequently takes the form of an attack upon this rival’s physical beauty. The chapter shows that we should place less recognised figures such as Sidero, Dirce, and the wife of Creon alongside the widely cited examples of Clytemnestra and Medea as tragic wives whose desire to maintain or restore their status leads them to violently target other women.