UC Irvine

This dissertation investigates adultery and the appropriation of ritual space in Classical Greece, focusing on the portrayal of women and adultery in Greek literary and material sources. It is the first study which analyzes in detail both the extant literary and epigraphic sources for presentations of adultery, its multiple frames, the responses to adultery, and its tight and pervasive connections to ritual. Such representations show how the male portrayal of female sexuality, and ultimately maternity, seeks to problematize adulterous sexual contact. The creation and control of gendered space, which included both ritual and domestic spheres, allowed men to restrict female mobility and to protect their own lineage by ensuring the legitimacy of their children.

Each chapter focuses on depictions of female movement and action in different literary genres and other types of sources (tragedy, comedy, oratory, the catalogues of oracles and curse tablets, and tragic fragments). Similar themes surrounding female sexuality appear in each of these sources alongside the ubiquitous ritual frame; most notably, conspicuousness, tactility, and the manipulation of time and space are all presented as ways in which women could express their own autonomy. It is this self-expression, which is frequently connected to ritual, that the authors of the above genres portray as destructive to both the oikos and the polis. In addition, I make use of contemporary sociological, anthropological, and feminist theoretical perspectives to explain the purpose behind these portrayals; in essence, to show why female sexuality is negatively portrayed and so often associated with ritual space. I am particularly interested in ritual as spectacle and the presentation of adultery within these parameters in a variety of different sources, from the theater to curse tablets.