Hi I’m Mike Rugnetta, this is Crashcourse Mythology and today, rather than focus on
how the earth and what’s around it was created, we’re going to look specifically at what’s
on it, more specifically people, and even more specifically, men and women.
People.
Also the occasional animal.
No, not you Thoth.
You’re a god with an animal head, it’s different.
Anyway, we’re going to see how myths explain our origins and our relationships with each
other, or at least how they try to explain them.
It’s couples therapy, myth style.
INTRO Myths don’t usually incorporate contemporary
ideas of gender fluidity, although sometimes they do--Tireisias, ancient seer, I’m looking
at you.
As we’ve seen from the Chinese and Zoroastrian creation stories, myths often tend to focus
on dualities, or binaries, and one of the key ones we find is a distinction between
men and women.
And this binary opposition frequently sets women as subordinate to men, at least on earth.
In the heavens, it’s a little bit more complicated, as it tends to be.
Let’s start with a story that is probably well known to many of our viewers: the creation
of man and woman from the Bible.
Close readers of the Book of Genesis will know that there are two or even three creation
stories in it, which, according to Biblical scholars reflects different writing traditions.
We’re going to focus on the second one, found in Genesis 2.
As we join our story, God has already created the the earth and the heavens and man to till
the earth, because as we established last time: Gods don’t like weeding.
Unlike the first version of creation in Genesis, man is created near the very beginning, which
suggests that he’s actually pretty important in the grand scheme of things.
But apparently one man wasn’t enough for all that Edenic gardening.
Genesis 2 verse 21 begins: So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon the man, and while he slept took one his ribs and closed up its place with flesh:
and with the rib the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her
to the man.
Then the man said,
This is the bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she should be called Woman, because
she was taken out of Man.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become
one flesh.
Here we see an early justification for men being superior to women and it’s kind of
based on bad word play.
In the rest of the Genesis story, one of the things that marks man’s dominion over other
creatures is that he is given the power to name them, just as he is permitted to name
woman here.
The word play here also works in the original Hebrew, where the word for man is “ish”
and the word for woman is “isha” Get it!
She was taken out of man and so even her name is taken out of man.
Yup.
It’s Hilarious.
Just ask Gelos, Greek god of laughter.
Yeah, tough crowd.
This passage also explains marriage -- although only between a man and a woman -- and describes
a social order in which men leave their parents’ household when they marry to have their own
homes.
Whether this describes a family structure that already existed or was written in order
to encourage such a family structure, we can’t say for certain, but it’s likely that this
was an after-the-fact description.
Providing a rationalization for what people encounter in their daily lives is an important
function of myths.
The Bible goes on to refine the “natural” relationship between men and women and not
in an especially fun or feminist way.
After they eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, God is miffed and he punishes them.
To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing;
In pain you should bring forth children, Yet your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.
And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of
your wife, And you have eaten of the tree of which I
commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,”
cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of
your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to
you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken; You are dust, and to dust you shall return.
There’s just a lot going on here.
One way to interpret this is that it provides justification for man’s dominance over women
as a punishment for what one woman did in disobeying god.
The first punishments directly affect the experiences of women, causing the pain of
childbirth and desire for a husband that shall “rule over” her, establishing a patriarchal
order that really caught on.
Men are punished too, by having to work hard in order to eat, toiling at bringing food
out of the ground.
More gardening.
And what is the reward for all this hard work?
Death.
And returning to the ground.
Not even dental benefits.
Worse yet, as far as solidifying male-dominance goes, all of this is because man listened
to the voice of his wife.
So that sets a pretty nasty precedent.
Greek mythology creates a similar rationale for misogyny with the story of Pandora.
Even before she opened the jar bringing sorrows to all the world, Zeus made her as a punishme
nt for Prometheus who stole fire and gave it to the humans.
This is in addition to having his liver eaten by an eagle for all of eternity.
According to Hesiod she would be, “Another gift to men, an evil thing for their delight.”[1]
Hermes endowed Pandora with “lies and persuasive words and cunning ways.”[2] And probably
also, like, the absolute perfect shade of lipstick, but before we agree to this image
of women as conniving and untrustworthy, let’s pause to remember that it’s Hermes, a male
god and one of the great misogynists of the ancient world, who bestows these qualities
on Pandora, so this is a dude’s hateful vision of women.
Anyway, Zeus gave Pandora as a gift to Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus, who accepted her, even
though Prometheus had told him to never accept a gift from Zeus.
Maybe Zeus gifted lots of socks.
According to Hesiod, here’s what happened: Before this time men lived upon the earth
Apart from sorrow and from painful work, Free from disease, which brings the Death-gods
in.
But now the woman opened up the cask, And scattered pains and evils among men.
Inside the cask’s hard walls remained one thing,
Hope, only, which did not fly through the door.
The lid stopped her, but all the others flew, Thousands of troubles wandering the earth.[3]
Unfortunately, this concept that a social order of male dominance and female subordination
resulting from women acting out of turn, is not unique to the Biblical or the Greek tradition.
We find a similar story in Japan, just without an evil serpent or an all powerful death chest.
Let’s go to the Thoughtbubble. 1.One Japanese creation myth starts with a
young, not fully formed earth that looks something like a jellyfish.
2.Three invisible gods came into existence in Takamagahara, the High Plains of Heaven.
These three gods, called kami, were led by the Lord of the Center of Heaven, Amanominakanushi-no-kami,
After them were seven more generations of “heavenly” gods, 3.followed finally by
the primal couple Izanagi and his wife Izanami, who was also his sister.
4.Izanagi and Izanami were commanded by the gods to solidify the drifting land, so they
went to the Floating Bridge of Heaven and stirred the soupy liquid below with a spear.
Drops congealed on the tip of the spear, and formed the island of Onogoro, the first dry
land.
5.The Primal Couple went down to Onogoro and built a heavenly pillar.
Then they decided to procreate Izanagi asked his sister how her body was
formed and she told him that there was an unfinished part between her legs.
He replied that between his legs was an excess and perhaps the two should join there.
They devised a marriage ritual whereby each would walk around the pillar, and when they
met they would exchange compliments and have intercourse.
6.A child was born, but it was a deformed leech-child called Hiruko.
Its parents put Hiruko in a boat and set it out to sea.
The gods determined that the reason that the first child was born deformed was that Izanami
had spoken first.
7.Izanami and Izanagi returned to the heavenly pillar in Onogoro and repeated the ritual,
only this time Izanagi spoke first.
In due time, Izanami gave birth to an abundant number of children, islands, gods and goddesses.[4]
Thank you, Thoughtbubble.
This rationale established male precedence and female subservience in Japan.
Not only does this myth explain Japanese gender inequality, it also may explain an ancient
Japanese ritual in which the birth of a first child was celebrated by putting a clay figurine
into a reed boat and floating it away.[5] There is often a strong connection between
myths and rituals.
Many creation stories begin with the idea that human beings are immortal until something
or someone intrudes.
Biblical humans were immortal until Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, for example.
It was human error that brought death into the world.
Oops.
So we see another theme emerging here.
The Biblical, Japanese, and Greek explanations place the blame for human toil, pain, disease
on women.
It’s a pernicious idea, and it’s one that has had profound consequences for gender relations.
Perhaps what we are seeing is a justification for a system in which men feel it is their
right to rule over women, and find stories to tell to support it.
After all, there is no logical reason why women should be blamed.
Men make mistakes, too.
We’re gonna get to Phaeton, and that time he almost burned down the entire Earth, eventually.
Thanks for watching, see you next time.
Crash Course Mythology is filmed in the Chad and Stacy Emigholz Studio in Indianapolis,
Indiana, and was made with the help of all these nice people.
________________ [1] Quoted in Thury, E.M.
& Devinny, M.K.
Introduction to Mythology: Contemporary Approaches to Classical and World Myths.
4th ed.
Oxford U. Press.
2016.
P. 43.
[2] Ibid [3] Ibid p. 44
[4] This version of the myth is adapted from Littleton, C. Scott, World Mythology: The
Illustrated Guide.
Willis, Roy (General editor) Oxford U. Press.
2006 pp. 112-113 [5] ibid.