In the play, Lysistrata the struggle for peace negations by women explicitly reflects their position as well as influence in the society. Their ability to influence the making of major decisions is clearly seen in the manner they all unite for a common course and stick to it to the very end until their objective is achieved. The interminable Peloponnesian war is seemingly the nightmare of the women in the play, as they feel neglected and cut out by their men all because of the war.
It also acts as a revelation as women start to realize that they and their children were the ones greatly disadvantaged by the war. Lysistrata, who stand out as an extra ordinary woman with a sense of great individual responsibity, is vocal enough to enlighten her colleagues. She tells them of how they have been used and viewed by men as rascals and how their male counterparts shun upon their opinions. She explains to the magistrate and his battalion of Scythians how she pitied the Childress women who continued to age back at home all because men were out endless campaigns. Lysistrata emphasis the unfairness extended to them by the male sex by affirming to the magistrate that though men age they can marry at any age but a woman has a relatively short time before she is considered too old.
Deeply aggrieved by the status quo she ventures too marshal up support all around Greece from fellow women. She enlightens them of their rightful place in society remanding them that they had the power to make a difference and turn around events. Lysistrata wanted them to realize that they deserve better and had the potential to indeed make it better for themselves and for the common good. She then proceeds to engage them on a plot to deny their male counterparts conjugal rights in a bid to induce some sense into their minds and make them consider peace negotiations instead of war. The women go as far as taking a solemn oath to stick by the agreement circumstances notwithstanding.
Another smart move by the women in their pursuit to stamp their authority in the play is by sending Myrrhine the wife of Cinesias to sexually torture her husband but not to engage into the act with him. Myrrhine smartly does the torturing by intentionally delaying to have sex and finally refusing to commit into the act unless her husband stops the war. This makes her husband to the council to request for the beginning of peace talks. This was a show of might, since Myrrhine, made her husband go to the council something that he could not do with the war going on. This shows that women were stronger than war as they helped the society achieve that which killings could not; ending the “interminable war.”
When at the negotiating table, and Lysistrata introduces the negotiating ends to a beautiful woman called reconciliation, the men are said to be looking with lust, considering they had been denied sex by their women. The two negotiating sides have disagreements about the peace agreement they are trying to build but at the sight of Reconciliation, they are left with no choice but to mend the differences and come up with a solution. This exhibits Lysistrata’s power as a woman to force agreement on two opposing sides. She not only uses the regular women, but also goes a step ahead with the knowledge that in the negotiating table things could go wrong, introduces to the men Reconciliation an idea, which plays a major role in facilitating the peace agreement.
Work cited
Aristophanes. Lysistrata. Athens, n.d.
