Close-kin Marriages in Menander Cover Image

Близкородствените бракове в творбите на Менандър
Close-kin Marriages in Menander

Author(s): Daniela Tosheva
Subject(s): History, Literary Texts, Cultural history, Ancient World, Drama
Published by: Великотърновски университет „Св. св. Кирил и Методий”
Keywords: Greek New Comedy; Menander; Athens; close-kin marriage; epikleros
Summary/Abstract: The subject of this paper is the close-kin marriages in Menander’s comedies. The normative preference for close-kin marriage was different in fourth-centry BC Athens from modern societies. However, incestuous relations between full-blood brother and sister pr parent and child were considered wrong, and were never comic material in Menander’s comedy, which was concerned with realities of everyday life. I examine the comic purpose of introducing close-kin marriages in New Comedy, and I try to give explination on the cultural attitude towards endogamy. In order to explain these issues, I classify the close-kin marriages in three groups: (1) Brother-sister marriage, (2) First cousins marriage, (3) Marriage of the epikleros.