"It was socially acceptable for a man to go to a brothel or keep a mistress provided he did not bring her home. In a speech attributed to Andocides (4.14) the speaker criticizes Alcibiades for bringing both slave and free hetairas into his house after receiving the largest dowry in Greece for his wife. This forced his wife to leave him and go to the archon to register for a divorce. The speaker clearly regards Alcibiades’ behaviour as outrageous and insulting (υβριστής). In a marriage contract from Ptolemaic Egypt between a woman from Cos and a Greek from Alexandria, which must reflect general Greek attitudes, the husband agrees not to bring other women into the house (επεισάγεσθαι) and thereby insult his wife.32 If he did so, he would have been in breach of their agreement. The Greek audience who viewed the Oresteia would have seen Agamemnon’s attempt to introduce Cassandra into his house as deeply shocking. Clytemnestra takes a lover in part because her husband has left her alone and unsatisfied, then takes revenge on her husband in part for killing her daughter and for insulting her by introducing Cassandra into their home (Aesch. Ag. 1440–2, 1444–7). …
Heracles offends Deianeira in the same way in Sophocles’ Trachiniai. Here again it is a man’s desire for a woman which threatens his household. Heracles falls in love with Iole, and when her father Eurytus, the king of Oechalia, refuses to let him have an affair with her, he invades his country, kills him and sacks the city (351–68; cf. 472–83). While he is away for a long time, Deianeira remains loyal and worries about her husband (36–48, 141–52). … Her love and concern for him prompt her to send her son Hyllus to find him (61–93), and at first she rejoices at the news of his imminent return (293–4). Her joy turns to sorrow when she learns that one of the women captured by Heracles and brought to Trachis by Lichas is Iole (351–8). As a good wife, Deianeira has tolerated Heracles’ affairs with women in other places (457–60), but living with another woman under the same roof is more than she can endure (536–51; trans. Lloyd-Jones 1994–6): For I have taken in the maiden – but I think she is no maiden, but taken by him – as a captain takes on a cargo, a merchandize that does outrage to my feelings. And now the two of us remain beneath one blanket for him to embrace; such is the reward that Heracles, who is called true and noble, has sent me for having kept the house so long. I do not know how to be angry with my husband now that he is suffering severely from this malady; yet what woman could live together with this girl, sharing a marriage with the same man? For I see her youth advancing, and mine perishing; and the desiring eye turns away from those whose bloom it snatches. That is why I am afraid that Heracles may be called my husband, but the younger woman’s man. Deianeira desires her husband and is worried that he will pay more attention to the younger woman. Although she tries not to be angry with Heracles, Deianeira is clearly hurt that her reward for looking after the house for so long is to receive a rival in her own home. She distinguishes between Heracles falling in love, which she does not reproach, and bringing another woman into the house, which is intolerable."
- Yes” and “no” in women’s desire by Edward M. Harris, in Sex in Antiquity
