Collana | Antichistica
Monografia | L’anomalie nécessaire
Capitolo | 2 • Des femmes dangereuses
2 • Des femmes dangereuses
Abstract
This chapter opens the second part of the book, devoted to the different types of dangerous women attested in the sources; these are mainly figures from myth, flanked by a few examples taken from history or pseudo-history. The first category consists of women warriors and rulers, who perform a role considered to be a male prerogative: the Amazons, the women of Lemnos, the protagonists of the comic gynaecocracies and the representatives of the presumed ‘Spartan gynaecocracy’. The chapter then analyses female characters who are responsible for crimes in most cases perpetrated or attempted against close male relatives: murderers of husbands, filicides, stepmothers who attempt on the lives of stepchildren, parricides, vengeful mothers, Maenads murderers of men and children. It also focuses on four other categories of dangerous women who escape the conjugal and maternal role socially assigned to them. The first is made up of adulteresses, seductresses and prostitutes, who share the vices of lust and moral weakness traditionally attributed by ancient sources to the female gender. To this category also belong the numerous lustful stepmothers protagonists of the tales centred on the ‘Potiphar-motiv’. They are followed by the pharmakides, the poisoners and enchantresses, placed in the indistinct sphere between seduction and ‘magic’, and the parthenoi who refuse marriage or kill their husbands after marriage. The monstrous creatures of myth and the mormolykeia characterised as belonging to the female sex conclude the analysis.
Presentato: 23 Novembre 2023 | Accettato: 22 Gennaio 2024 | Pubblicato 18 Luglio 2024 | Lingua: fr
Copyright © 2024 Marcella Farioli. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-806-4/002
