First, we need to remember that Lysistrata is a comedy and
that unsatisfied male sexual desire was a typical element of Greek comedy. Typical comic
actor costumes include a large erect phallus made of red leather, and many of the jokes
in Aristophanes and the equally humorous satyr plays make reference to the phallus; some
of the jokes were extremely visual in nature, and at times difficult to assess based
simply on the texts which have been transmitted without stage
directions.
Greek marriage, of which our most detailed
account may be found in Xenophon's Oeconomicus, normally involved an adult
(approximately 30) man taking a wife just at the beginning of her reproductive age
(12-14) for the purpose of trying to father living male offspring in an era of high
infant mortality. Greek society was radically homosocial -- men socialized with other
men, and women with other women. They often even attended separate religious
rituals.
There is no evidence that Aristophanes was
unconventional in his notions of women; a proto-feminist reading of the play is probably
anachronistic. The importance of marriage was primarily fathering sons to sustain
population, in a era in which the Peloponnesian wars were decimating the Athenian male
population. Aristophanes' plays consistently oppose the Peloponnesian wars, and like his
"Peace", the point of this play is to suggest that Athenians, rather than prosecuting
foreign wars, should focus more on cultivating their estates. Marriage was a critical
part of household economics, with women providing heirs and also engaging in most of the
clothing production of the estate.
Lysistrata and her
friends are important vehicles for this argument because Aristophanes is making the
point that the Peloponnesian wars are so obviously harming Athens, that
even women can see their pointlessness. The sexual strike, of
course, is intended mainly for its comic effect.
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