Lilith's The Cult Of Womanhood
In an old Hebrew myth, scribed in medieval times, Adam had a wife prior to the complacent, obedient Eve; her name was Lilith. Lilith was created not from rib, but from the same dust as Adam. As the story goes, Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam, stating that they were equals. When Adam tried to force her into compliance, she fled to the treacherous Red Sex. Considered a demoness by all accounts, she sat on the edge of the sea, birthing more than one hundred demon babies every day. Adam cried to God for help, and God sent angels to fetch Lilith back. When she refused, they condemned her to a fate of either taking the life of an infant (unless that infant has its name written on an amulet) or if she cannot, then she must take the life of
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This has been perpetuated by the ideology that women are naturally submissive, pious, and gentle creatures. “The Cult of Womanhood” describes this ideology by placing men and women into two “spheres” – not unlike men are from Mars, women are from Venus. (reference here) The public sphere involves business and public life, ruthless and uncaring. This sphere is reserved for men. The other sphere, the private sphere, is gentle, nurturing, and devoted to familial and religious matters. When a women steps outside this sphere, she is reviled and, what some sexist journalists have called her, a “mental hermaphrodite.” The Wife of Bath, Alyson, one of the traveling characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” is a prime example of a complex, independent woman in literature, who by Chaucer’s pen, is an immoral being. GoodAlyson explains her quintet of marriages, going into detail about how she controlled, lied, and manipulated all of her husbands until their deaths. She says, “Of tribulacion in marriage, of which I am expert in al myn age. This is to seyn, myself have been the whippe.” (III.179-181) ExcellentShe is seen as a sexually dominant man-hater, instead of a headstrong, vivacious …show more content…
Lady Macbeth, a Shakespearan Olympias of sorts, was a controlling villainess, who manipulated her husband into committing several murders. Of course, she could not commit these murders with the mindset of a woman, because women, even fictionally, are bound by their sex’s
This has been perpetuated by the ideology that women are naturally submissive, pious, and gentle creatures. “The Cult of Womanhood” describes this ideology by placing men and women into two “spheres” – not unlike men are from Mars, women are from Venus. (reference here) The public sphere involves business and public life, ruthless and uncaring. This sphere is reserved for men. The other sphere, the private sphere, is gentle, nurturing, and devoted to familial and religious matters. When a women steps outside this sphere, she is reviled and, what some sexist journalists have called her, a “mental hermaphrodite.” The Wife of Bath, Alyson, one of the traveling characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” is a prime example of a complex, independent woman in literature, who by Chaucer’s pen, is an immoral being. GoodAlyson explains her quintet of marriages, going into detail about how she controlled, lied, and manipulated all of her husbands until their deaths. She says, “Of tribulacion in marriage, of which I am expert in al myn age. This is to seyn, myself have been the whippe.” (III.179-181) ExcellentShe is seen as a sexually dominant man-hater, instead of a headstrong, vivacious …show more content…
Lady Macbeth, a Shakespearan Olympias of sorts, was a controlling villainess, who manipulated her husband into committing several murders. Of course, she could not commit these murders with the mindset of a woman, because women, even fictionally, are bound by their sex’s