This is the essay for the 7th week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. It’s an answer to one question, it’s about the play Medea

Can we learn anything from Medea about the Greeks’ attitudes toward foreigners and women?

If you don’t know what Medea is, then I will explain it shortly so we can answer the question. If you already know what it is, then you can skip ahead. Medea is a play which takes place in 431 BC. It is about the fury of a mistreated foreign woman, whose husband abandons her after he wants to protect his children. Her husband, Jason marries the princess of Corinth, to secure his children as the position of king. The wife, Medea is very angry and has plans of taking revenge by killing her own children. The king of Corinth, Creon then banishes Medea from Corinth because he is afraid that she will kill his daughter. At the end of the play, Medea is able to kill Creon’s daughter, Creon himself and also her own children.

Now that I have given a quick plot summary of the book we can get started on the question. The Greeks don’t give much respect and truth to women and foreigners. They use them for their personal gain and after they find a gain that is better, they jump boat. In the play, this is shown when Jason finds a better life for his children he abandons his previous faithful wife, which makes her go semi-crazy. When they suspect something bad they blame it on the foreigners and banish them. This shows very little truth toward the foreigners.

Although the Greeks weren’t completely hostile to foreigners and women, many city-states did respect foreigners pretty well. For example, Athens allowed foreigners to stay work do almost everything a citizen could do except, vote in the assembly. Women, on the other hand, were in a much worse position. In most city-states (except Sparta) women are not allowed to own a house, inherit anything or vote. They were meant to take care of the house and the children. Sometimes they were also allowed to set up a small shop, but that was rare. In Sparta however, it is quite a different story. In Sparta, women had more rights than in any other city-state. Why? It’s because the work in the household that women would normally do was instead done by slaves in Sparta. Women had to do physical training like men and also they were allowed to own houses and drink wine. So I guess in the other city-states women had to stay sober.

In conclusion, what we can learn from the play Medea about the Greeks attitudes toward foreigners and women, is that they did respect and believe the foreigners and women. They also respected them to some extent, but it could have been much more.