Why the Greek myths?
I felt it was important to begin at the beginning theres nothing older in Western culture than Greek mythology. It is compelling to go back to the roots of our modern homophobic society and finding there a whole body of work on the sacredness of same-sex love. 3. How do you think the Greek themselves understood these stories? The stories are varied, so there is no single answer. We can say that the myths seem designed as teaching tools, for communicating a certain set of values, and for encoding certain social and religious practices. Some stories teach by example, by showing positive models; others teach by counter-example. Still others seem to encode shamanic coming-of-age rituals, and others are just in fun. 4. Why are there no stories about women? Ancient Greece was a patriarchal society, and womens lore was simply not preserved because men were the ones keeping records. That pattern continued during the middle ages, when it was the Christian monks who preserved the ancient texts.
