Lysistrata

Lysistrata was the name of the woman in Aristophanes play that sought to end the wars between areas like Greece and Athens. Her brilliant solution to go about bringing peace involved gathering a group of women and having all of them, including herself, refrain from sex with their husbands. From first reading this play I assumed that the women choosing to forgo sex was intended to symbolize the supposed strength that women possessed over men, or that's what I got out of it at least. Even though, the more I read, it seemed that most of the women (from the few that agreed and pledged to her idea) Lysistrata recruited came up with far out ideas to avoid participating in her plan and run off to be with their husbands. I started to rethink my idea about the play reflecting the strength of women until, for example, I reached the part near the end of the play with Myrrhine and her husband, Cinesias, who was desperate to be with his wife again. Not only was it entertaining to read, but it only went to prove what I initially thought upon reading Lysistrata. Some parts of the play I found comical, especially the concept that woman refusing to engage in sex with their husbands could be enough to end a war, but it wasn't until after our class discussion that I understood that that was what the majority of what Lysistrata was intended to be. There was a part in the play that I did not quite understand and that was the scene when Lysistrata and the other women of her entourage enter some sort of temple and I assume they chose the reside there until their husbands could come to peace with other feuding nations. I just overall couldn't understand if staying in that temple was supposed to convey some sort of message or something, but that scene just didn't seem to fit and flow with the rest of the play. Also during that scene was when these choruses of men and women began speaking during the play, which I thought sort of increased tension and bitterness between the sexes, which, for me, added to concept of what the play was supposed to reflect. Overall, I thought that Aristopanes Lysistrata was a good, although probably not accurate depiction during its time of production, reflection of what a strong woman could be and even how one woman could bring an end to war by the simple act of refraining from sex.