First of all they wash all their wool in warm water, according to the ancient practice you will never see them changing their method. “They are worth more than you are, as I shall prove. Aristophanes uses the opportunity to insert a few backhanded compliments: And then she goes on to list all the ways in which women are better than men. “I assert that the direction of affairs must be handed over to the women, for they are the ones who have charge and look after our households,” she says, to the loud approval of her fellow conspirators. She even rehearses her speech for the other women to hear – of course, assuming the role of a man standing in front of other men at the assembly. They discuss between hem who should be their representative, and Praxagora proves by far the best speaker – not the least because she has lived on the Pnyx (the hill where the assemblies were hosted) and has listened to past orators. Of course, they will first have to convince the other male members of the assembly to put this new law for voting. And they plan to do this as legally as possible: by proposing and voting for a law granting power to the women. After getting an affirmative answer, she is pleased to note, under the weak light, that she doesn’t even need to ask the follow-up questions: “I see that you have got all the rest too, Spartan shoes, staffs and men's cloaks, as it was arranged… So come,” she cries out, “let us finish what has yet to be done, while the stars are still shining the Assembly, at which we mean to be present, will open at dawn.” Praxagora’s plan soon becomes a bit clearer: she has gathered all the Athenian women at this hour – and made them steal their husbands’ clothes – so that they can infiltrate the Assembly and seize the helm of state from the hands of the incompetent men. “Have you the beards that we had all to get ourselves for the Assembly?” Praxagora asks them. In a street near the public square in Athens, Praxagora anxiously awaits before her house the arrival of her fellow conspirators. Finally, a drunken maid celebrating the new laws calls Blepyrus to an inaugural dinner – and finds him already on the way there with two girls under his arms.Īssemblywomen begins in a much similar manner as Lysistrata, a play with which it shares several similarities. In another episode, a young man is forced to sleep with an ugly old woman before earning the right to enjoy the love of his eager young girlfriend. The idea is immediately put to the test, as a selfish man refuses to contribute to the common fund – while intending to enjoy the benefits. That doesn’t stop her from describing how the new government will operate and listing several progressive measures that cannot but remind one of Plato’s utopia: gender equality, common parenting, community of possessions. Praxagora successfully defends herself from the charge, and acts all surprised when Blepyrus tells her of the assembly’s strange decision. Soon after, Praxagora returns home and Blepyrus accuses her of sneaking away in the night with her lover and using his clothes to hide herself from the eyes of the neighbors. Coming over from the assembly, a man named Chremes happens upon Praxagora’s husband Blepyrus (curiously dressed in his wife’s robes and slippers) and tells him that the assembly – thanks largely to the unprecedented turnout of pale-faced shoe-makers – has voted to put the women in charge of the city. Following her directives, the Athenian women mask themselves as men (by appropriating their husbands’ clothes and putting on false beards) and go to the Athenian assembly with the intention of proposing and voting for a law that should hand over all power to the women. The scheme is the brainchild of a woman named Praxagora and is presented at the beginning of the play. The plot of Aristophanes’ shortest comedy is fairly simple and concerns a scenario where the Athenian women assume power in the city and immediately introduce sexual equality and ban private property. However, the similarities between some aspects of the play and the utopian ideas of Plato in his Republic have made Assemblywomen the subject of numerous comparative analyses and philosophical or historical speculations. First performed between 393 and 389 BC, Assemblywomen (or Ecclesiazusae) is, chronologically, the penultimate of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes, and, arguably, one of his least celebrated – at least as a literary work.
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