“Non v’è animo più sanguinario” : (Eur. Med. 266) : Medea e i rischi della maternità negata

Medea has no doubts in defining adikía – a term that in the Greek legal vocabulary signifies the offence worth of compensation – the guilt of Jason, the man for whom she had abandoned her homeland and to whom she is bound by sacred oaths he has betrayed, by marrying another woman. Greek tragedy is a political product, and many dramas underscore the conflicts and contradictions experienced by the city at the time of its performance. In Athens it was the rule for women not to react to their husbands’ repudiation, and not to consider as their own the children they gave birth to – the laws of the city established that fatherhood, not motherhood was relevant. Through Medea and her extreme gesture of infanticide, Euripides criticizes that system, highlighting its potential and dangerous risks.