Historical Background

Early Matriarchal Societies

Until about 1900 B. C., the natives of Greece were peaceful, agrarian people, who lived in scattered, independent villages and followed a female-dominated religion.  In these matriarchal societies, the Great Goddess or Mother Goddess personified Mother Earth (Gaia) and was the supreme deity. She was the source of all human life and the source of all food. To survive, societies needed to produce children and to produce food. They knew how dependent they were upon the blessings of the Great Goddess, and they worshipped her properly so they would receive those blessings.

The queen personified the Great Goddess, and she wielded great political, economic, social, and religious power. Other women were considered daughters of the Great Goddess. Thus, all women in the matriarchal society were highly valued, and women held a superior position to men in society. Women were the heads of their families, and inheritance passed from a mother to her daughters, with the youngest daughter being most important because, presumably, she would be the last to die and thus would continue the family line the longest. Children were reared by their mother and her brother, while the father lived in the home of his mother and helped rear his sister's children. The children's primary moral obligations were to their mother and their siblings.

When the male's role in procreation became understood and valued, the queen took a husband, called the sacred king, for one year. At first, he was her brother or her son, but later he was a youth who symbolized her son. Many youths competed for the great honor of being sacred king. They had to win many contests involving physical strength and the skillful use of the bow.

Each spring, when the seeds of the new crops were sown, the past year's sacred king would be sacrificed as part of a major religious ceremony. The priestesses of the Mother Goddess would eat his flesh in order to acquire his powers of fertility, and the fields and farm animals would be sprinkled with his blood so they too would become fertile. Then in a religious ceremony the queen would take a new sacred king for the coming year.

Early Europeans in this area worshipped earth goddesses under many names; for example, Pandora, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, and Hera.  However, no matter which name was used, the earth goddess was worshipped in order to assure the human family health, prosperity, and fertility in personal and in agricultural terms.

By 2100 B.C., aggressive patriarchal tribes worshipping a supreme male god who was a father-figure or a successful warrior had begun to invade many matriarchal communities. They brought with them a new social and political order in which males dominated. Kings gained enough power to change the old social system to one in which kings ruled by heredity and animals were sacrificed to win the favor of the gods.

Under the Greek invaders, the principal god became male (Zeus).   With the support of his religion, the king established himself as the principal ruler of the community, and inheritance usually fell upon the oldest son.  Daughters became the property of their fathers, bestowed in marriage as their father chose.  Wives became the subject to the wills of their husbands. The role and status of women was greatly decreased. 

The arrival of these aggressive tribes gradually eliminated the matriarchal system.  One by one, the aggressors conquered the independent villages and took over their religious shrines.  They adopted aspects of the culture they encountered, but in order to destroy the power of the old religion, they transformed the local religion into one that would accommodate their own male-dominated point of view.  Under the new religion, the earth goddesses like Pandora were reduced in status to wives of the patriarchal gods or demoted even further to the status of human women. 

In Greek Mythology,  Pandora is transformed from an earth goddess, the bringer of life-giving gifts to humans,  to a mortal woman  who is the source of all evils and responsible for all the sufferings that will afflict human beings form that time forth.   This myth, like other Greek myths, illustrates the attitudes of a male-dominated society. 

Source:   Rosenberg, Donna and Dorelle Baker.  Mythology and You.  Lincolnwood, IL:  National Textbook Company, 1992. pp. 112 - 115