Homoerotic Unions Make Up for Unsatisfying Marriages
Karen Gibbins
Marriage is undeniably effective for some things such as procreation and rearing those produced children.Ê Biologically, all creatures need heterosexual union of some kind to continue their species, but this union need not be a required social construct.Ê In ancient and classical Greece, as well as in much of the world today, marriage is a social expectation.Ê Elders encourage young men to choose their even younger wives at the expected time and to create a respectable typical household.Ê But is marriage actually necessary or even what people desire?Ê Hellenic marriage seems to be constructed in such a way as to leave many Greeks unsatisfied and discontent.Ê Why else would adultery and keeping mistresses be so prevalent?Ê One strong indicator of this general dissatisfaction is the prevalence of homoerotic relationships and their benefits compared to the benefits of marriage.Ê Based on textual evidence provided in Plato?s Symposium and Sappho?s lyric poetry, homoerotic relationships seem to be important and often essential unions that do not fit into the social construct of Hellenic marriages.Ê
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ?We human beings will never attain happiness unless we find perfect love (Plato 193c,? says Plato?s version of comic playwright Aristophanes.Ê However, it is not necessarily a joke.Ê For many people, perfect love is not to be found in Hellenic marriage.Ê Rather, their natural desires lead them towards a lover or life partner of the same sex.Ê It seems that many intellectual Greeks understood that homoerotic desire was inherent in many people, yet marriage continued to prevail as the leading lifestyle.Ê In Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes tell a story of cartwheeling, two-bodied humans who were kept from becoming too powerful by being split from each other.Ê ?Love draws our original nature back together (Plato, 191d),? says Aristophanes.Ê Thus, men who were attached to men seek men, women who were attached to women seek women, and those attached to the opposite gender seek the opposite gender.Ê Interestingly, Aristophanes suggests that it is from this last group that adulterers and adulteresses come (Plato 191d).Ê This implies that no one is satisfied in their marriage.Ê Either one desires someone of the same sex, or one desires someone who is not their spouse.Ê Also, according to the math in the cartwheel story, two thirds of humans must be homosexual.Ê Granted, this is an exaggeration.Ê Some marriages where husband and wife desire each other do exist, but these seem rare.Ê Nevertheless, marriages exclude the desires of many people, so they must act upon these desires in other forms of union.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHomoerotic desire, longing, and love in Greek texts are depicted as equally strong or stronger than the heterosexual equivalents.Ê Plato?s philosophers argue over who receives the privilege of sharing a couch with the handsomest of them.Ê Agathon and Pausanius are shown to be affectionate and loyal to each other.Ê Some of the strongest expressions of desire are found in Sappho?s lyric poetry.Ê She speaks of a certain woman as being what she most desires, claiming, ?I?d rather see her comely step, the shining luster of her face than the Lydians? chariots and infantry in armor (16 L-P lines 17-20).?Ê When she explicitly details her longing, it is enough to quicken the reader?s heartbeat.Ê
Speak any longer,
But my tongue goes mute?, a
sudden, slender
Flame invades my flesh,
My eyes go dark, my ears
Are roaring,
Cold sweat covers me, a
trembling
Seizes my body?Ê (31 L-P lines
6-14)
Since such strong desire existed in Hellenic society, it is impossible that all men and women were satisfied with their semi-arranged marriages.Ê
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn comparison, people in ancient and classical Greece were quite capable of finding satisfaction in their homoerotic unions.Ê Perhaps this is because, particularly for women, to participate in a homoerotic union was not a necessary expectation, so the unions were more often fully desired and personal.Ê Sappho speaks of having ?been through beautiful things (94 L-P line 11)? with one of her lovers.Ê She tells of flowers, beds, and groves they experienced together in perfect happiness, perhaps the sort of happiness Aristophanes alluded to in Symposium.Ê Similarly, Phaedra claims that ?the greatest benefit, to [his] mind, that a young man can come by in his youth is a virtuous lover, and a virtuous boyfriend is just as good for a lover too (Plato, 178c).?Ê Homoerotic relationships, however, are by no means perfect.Ê They do end.Ê There are arguments, jealousies, and loveless lusts (which philosophers deem inappropriate).Ê Also, men who partake in homoerotic love seem to be mocked, as is suggested by Aristophanes when he says, ?I know they sometimes get called immoral (Plato, 191d).?Ê Still, there seem to be enough staunch advocates of homoeroticism, particularly the intellectuals in Symposium, to infer that many people are quite satisfied by it and use it to fill the holes in their marriages.Ê If people were truly satisfied with their marriages, there would be no homoeroticism, since marriages at this time were only heterosexual.Ê
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPossibly, the reason that homoerotic relationships could be so fulfilling was because of the gender roles in Hellenic society.Ê Women were considered weak and stupid.Ê Pausanius speaks of women as ?the most unintelligible people imaginable (Plato 181b).?Ê He is not alone in this opinion.Ê This idea, generally regarded as factual, was used to support men?s inherent superiority.Ê Heterosexual union does not transcend this imbalance.Ê Men still see themselves as superior.Ê Thus, heterosexual love cannot be egalitarian.Ê How could a man truly, fully love a woman if he knows she is stupid, weak, and deceitful?Ê How could a woman reciprocate a love that is not true?Ê Therefore, it seems that a man could only love a man as an equal partner, since he would see his lover as intelligent, and a woman could only love and be loved by another woman who was naturally well aware of the presence of (gasp!) female intelligence.Ê Also, even if a husband accepts that his wife has some sort of wit about her, he still must assume the dominant, penetrating role. The scales are still unbalanced.Ê Although, traditionally, in male homoerotic relationships the elder man is dominant and the younger man is submissive, some relationships do evolve beyond that power dynamic, such as that of Agathon and Pausanius.Ê At least, in male homoerotic relationships, unlike heterosexual relationships, a participant rarely regards his partner as inferior.Ê Female homoerotic relationships are the unions that have the possibility of being actually egalitarian, or at least they allow for partners to figure out their own roles in the relationship.Ê There is no predefined social construct dictating who is dominant.Ê Sappho shows an example of this freedom.Ê
For if she runs, she?ll soon be
chasing;
If she won?t take gifts, well,
she?ll give them;
And if she doesn?t love, soon
she will love ?
Even unwilling.Ê (1 L-P lines
21-24)
Even if this relationship has a dominant partner or a pursuer, that role may soon shift.Ê This freedom, compared to the restrictions of marriage, creates a more satisfying environment.Ê By existing outside of the social construct of marriage, homoerotic relationships allow power dynamics to be based on personal rather than societal stipulations, thereby being more fulfilling for many people.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSince there was undeniable same sex desire in many people, these relationships were inevitable in ancient and classical Greece.Ê Unfortunately, as long as these people lived in a society where heterosexual marriage was necessary, they could not pursue their homoerotic relationships as lifelong partnerships.Ê Pausanius and Agathon?s relationship was a rare exception, yet, they did not actually live together.Ê Marriage required people to stay in socially determined, inherently unbalanced, heterosexual relationships and thereby left many unsatisfied.Ê Thus, the presence of these homoerotic relationships, shows that many people were not happy in their traditional, Hellenic marriages.Ê