Hesiod on women

[Cornfed]

I came across this old post of mine on another forum and thought I would repost it here:

As we know, Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet who lived in Boeotia around 800 BC. Like Homer he was the first to write down works which had been part of an oral tradition passed down through the ages. Among these words of wisdom are several astute observations on the nature of women.

It turns out that originally the human race consisted of a genetically engineered line of non-breeding males who lived happy and long lives. However, their creators felt slighted when they began to grow outside their control, so they created women as a kind of virus to punish the men and bring them down to earth:

For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth. And as in thatched hives bees feed the drones whose nature is to do mischief -- by day and throughout the day until the sun goes down the bees are busy and lay the white combs, while the drones stay at home in the covered skeps and reap the toil of others into their own bellies -- even so Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil.

From then on the men were screwed. Even those who rebuked the evil women couldn't escape their horrible effects:

And he gave them a second evil to be the price for the good they had: whoever avoids marriage and the sorrows that women cause, and will not wed, reaches deadly old age without anyone to tend his years, and though he at least has no lack of livelihood while he lives, yet, when he is dead, his kinsfolk divide his possessions amongst them. And as for the man who chooses the lot of marriage and takes a good wife suited to his mind, evil continually contends with good; for whoever happens to have mischievous children, lives always with unceasing grief in his spirit and heart within him; and this evil cannot be healed. So it is not possible to deceive or go beyond the will of Zeus.

Thanks to the introduction of this evil, previously happy men found themselves miserable as the world turned into an annex of hell:

For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness which bring the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full.

About the only thing men can do is mitigate the damage caused by women. The most obvious piece of advice is not to trust them:

Do not let a flaunting woman coax and cozen and deceive you: she is after your barn. The man who trusts womankind trusts deceivers.

Also, women seem to have some kind of negative energy associated with their very bodies, and it is important not to be contaminated by this. (Could this be the reason that any previously all-male enterprise that women join subsequently turns to shit, even when the women don’t ostensibly do anything?):

A man should not clean his body with water in which a woman has washed, for there is bitter mischief in that also for a time.

If you must marry, you want to give yourself the best chance possible. Hence you should do so when you are mature but not past your best and your wife is young and biddable and hasn't had time to become a disease-ridden whore:

Bring home a wife to your house when you are of the right age, while you are not far short of thirty years nor much above; this is the right age for marriage. Let your wife have been grown up four years, and marry her in the fifth. Marry a maiden, so that you can teach her careful ways, and especially marry one who lives near you, but look well about you and see that your marriage will not be a joke to your neighbours. For a man wins nothing better than a good wife, and, again, nothing worse than a bad one, a greedy soul who roasts her man without fire, strong though he may be, and brings him to premature old age.

Can't really improve on that ancient wisdom. This kind of thing should be taught to children in school.