In a different translation from your text, Apollo makes the following peculiar claim:

"The woman you call the mother of the child is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed, the new-sown seed that grows and swells inside her.
The man is the source of life--the one who mounts.
She, like a stranger for a stranger, keeps the shoot alive unless god hurts the roots." (ll. 836-844 in your text)

Explain the prevailing Greek customs that make it necessary for Apollo to assert the claim if Orestes is to be freed. What do you think the consequences for Greek society will be when it is accepted that ancestry flows through the male line rather than the female? What consequences has this view of inheritance and legitimacy had upon own society? Can you think of an alternative way the Greeks could have made the transition from a society based upon blood lines to one based upon law without subordinating women to men?

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Gender roles play an active part in The Eumenides and the divide between the sexes is vividly depicted in a series of conflicts The first of these cla... View the full answer