Aphrodite: Goddess of Love

 

Aphrodite is a well-known Greek goddess. She is goddess of love, desire, pleasure, and procreation; see a common theme? Her overwhelming beauty sparked quite a tension among the Olympians. It was feared that the beauty of Aphrodite and the desire that many had for the goddess would create a mass rivalry to try and take her for themselves. It was believed that said rivalry would create a war among the gods. In an attempt to rid them of this predicament, Zeus married Aphrodite off to Hephaestus. Hephaestus is described and “ugly” and “deformed”.

The characteristics used to describe someone like Aphrodite are not hard to infer. She was a beautiful, worldly-desired goddess who was forced to marry one of the most “hideous” of all the gods. She is described as being extremely vain or highly focused on her own vanity, ill-tempered, and quite sensitive on occasion in terms of her reaction to being “insulted”; though she was said to often imply insults where no insult was intended. She was quite obviously very displeased with her forced marriage (A marriage that Hephaestus was overjoyed about. I mean, the man even forged her beautiful jewelry and presents to try and compensate for his lack of beauty in comparison to hers. She could have been a bit more grateful; he was a sweetheart to her. She sort of seemed a bit like a spoiled brat).

In reaction to her distaste for both her marriage and her “inadequate” husband, Aphrodite had many affairs. She really wasn’t particular about who she would sleep around with in any way, shape, or form. Whether she had affairs with a wide range of men because she actually had some interest in them or because it was a sort of rebellion against both Zeus and Hephaestus is still in question. She had affairs with gods (particularly Ares: God of war with whom she was most often sighted or paired with in mythology), mortals, even Adonis who was sort of like her surrogate or adoptive son after she found him as a child. Granted, she was a girl who was used to being constantly desired and given what she wanted. She wasn’t exactly given the fair end of the bargain by being “betrothed” to a god who most found inadequate, but she could have held higher standards for herself. Aphrodite is not any different than most gods. Many gods; Apollo, Zeus, Ares, Poseidon, they had countless children because of all of their affairs. What I find strange about her situation is the fact that Hephaestus plays such a major role in her mythology. A similar occurrence can be said of Persephone. With major male, Olympian gods, they tend to have “consorts” as opposed to concretely evident partners or wives. Persephone and Aphrodite were both forced into marriage that they didn’t want, simply because of their beauty. The difference was, Persephone always went back to her husband (Of course, he hadn’t given her much of a choice), Aphrodite seemed as if she were more married to Ares than she ever seemed to be with Hephaestus.

Overall, Aphrodite isn’t exactly one of my favorite of the Greek goddesses. I like her and the whole idea of love and everything that she represents, but I honestly believe that some of her traits make it harder to enjoy her character or sympathize for her. Aphrodite seemed to be a truly conceited, selfish, and bitter person who would use men to show a sign of rebellion and anger at the life choices she had been forced into.