Ancient

uxoricidic
violence in
KILLING PREGNANT comparative
perspective
WOMEN By Susan
Deacy
 APPROACHING ‘SENSITIVE’ SUBJECTS

 Interpretation vs.
evaluation of the past
 South Italian r-f bell-
krater,
 London F149: Alkmene,
Amphitryon, Zeus.
 Sexual
jealousy/paternity
uncertainty
 ‘The past isn’t dead.
It’s not even past’
(Faulkner)
 CONSILIENCE AND
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

Ancient Greece in Consilience:

evolutionary perspective:
 Carroll, J. et al. 2012.
 Gottschall, J. 2008. The Graphing Jane Austen:
Rape of Troy: Evolution, The evolutionary basis
Violence and the World of literary meaning.
of Homer. Cambridge. Basingstoke.

 McHardy, F. 2008.  Slingerland, E. and M.

Revenge in Athenian Collard. 2012. Creating
Culture. London. Consilience: Integrating
the Sciences and the
Humanities. New York.
 THE CASE FOR CONSILIENCE CONTINUED…

Steiner (via Pinker)

on how myths
‘encode certain
biological and social
confrontations and
self-perceptions in
the history of man’
and thus ‘endure as
an animate legacy’
(in Slingerland and
Collard 2012: 52)
 EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND IPV

 Wilson, M. I. and M. Daly.

1996. “Male Sexual
 “violence against
Proprietariness and Violence wives is a product of
A gainst Wives.” Current
Directions in Psychological self-interested male
Science 5.1: 2–7. motives directed at
constraining wives’
 —— 1998. “Lethal and
nonlethal violence against autonomy.” Wilson
wives and the evolutionar y
psychology of male sexual
and Daly (1998)
proprietariness .” In Violence 199–200.
Against Women: International
and Cross-disciplinar y
Perspectives, edited by R.
Dobash and R. Dobash, pp.
199–230. Thousand Oaks CA .
 EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND IPV
CONTINUED
 Brownridge, D. A ., T. L.
Taillieu, K. A . Tyler, A . Tiwari,
Ko Ling Chan and S. C. Santos.
2011 . “Pregnancy and
Intimate Par tner Violence:
Risk Factor s, Severity, and
Health Ef fects.” Violence
Against Women 17: 858–81 .
 Goetz, A . T. 2008. “ Violence
and Abuse in Families: The
Consequences of Paternal
Uncer tainty.” In Family
Relationships: An Evolutionar y
Perspective, edited by C. A .
Salmon and T. K. Shackelford,
pp. 259–74. Oxford.
 Polk, K. 1994. When Men
Kill: Scenarios of Masculine
Violence. Cambridge.
 “The male mind might be
designed to be
hypersensitive to cues of a
partner's sexual infidelity,
motivating more false
positives than false
negatives because the
benefits of the former
outweigh the costs of the
latter.” Goetz (2008) 261.
 UXORICIDE IN PREGNANCY:
SOME PREVIOUS STUDIES
 Burgess, J. S. 2001.  Pomeroy, S. B. 2007. The
“Coronis Aflame: The Murder of Regilla: A Case
Gender of Mortality.” CPh of Domestic Violence in
96: 214–27. Antiquity. Cambridge,
MA.
 Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2011.
“Domestic Abuse and  Schaps, D. M. 2006.
Violence against Women “Zeus the wife-beater.”
in Ancient Greece.” In Scripta Classica Israelica
Sociable Man: Essays on 25: 1–24.
Ancient Greek Social
Behaviour in Honour of
Nick Fisher, edited by S.
D. Lambert, pp. 231–66.
Swansea.
KILLING PREGNANT WIVES: THE SCOPE
OF THE TOPIC
Power; patriarchy Cambyses
Sexual jealousy; Periander
uncertainty over Herodes
paternity Zeus: Semele, Metis
learned behaviour Apollo: Coronis
and genetic
adaptations Amphitryon:
attempted murder of
Alkmene
Chaereas in Chariton
 ALKMENE, AMPHITRYON AND ZEUS

 “tableau with obvious  Gantz, T. 1993. Early

Euripidean potential” Greek Myth: A Guide
(Gantz 1993: 377); to Literary and
see Webster (1967) Artistic Sources.
92–4. Baltimore and
London.

 Webster, T. B. L. 1967.
The Tragedies of
Euripides. London.
 BURNING PREGNANT WOMEN

 Coronis:
 killed while pregnant by
Apollo with Asklepios for
infidelity with Ischys–
blasted by Apollo or
Artemis

 Semele:
 killed while pregnant by
Zeus (?) with Dionysos
for infidelity with
Actaeon – blasted by
 Re d - f i g. N o l a n n e c k - a m p h o r a , c . 4 8 0 – Zeus; Actaeon killed by
7 0 , B e r l i n P a i n te r, L o n d o n B M E 31 3 . Artemis.
BURNING PREGNANT WOMEN CONT’D…

‘Particularist’
meaning: Connor, W.
R. 1985. “The
Razing of the House
in Greek Society.”
TAPA 115: 79–102.

‘Universalist’
meaning: Polk
(1994) 35, 43.
 SOME CONCLUSIONS

Underlying Proprietorial
motivations for behaviour
intimate partner Anxiety concerning
violence in Alkmene control over
example: reproductive
resources
Uxoridic anger