Postscript

The other day I noticed a small book about myths and legends at reference 1. This day, for some reason, the story of Odysseus came to mind, celebrated by Julian Jaynes as the birth of the modern, reflective and devious man. Not very Freudian at all, but see reference 2 to check for yourself.

While I was thinking how sexist it was.

You have a chap who goes off to the wars with half the young men of the land and vanishes for ten years or more. There is no news, but he has various adventures, some involving young ladies, and all his men get killed.

Eventually he gets back to find a throng of suitors for his wife, eating him out of house and home. He slaughters the lot, defiling their corpses for good measure. He then gets the maids who had been entertaining the suitors in various ways, to clear up the mess and then hangs the lot of them from a rope strung across his courtyard. His wife, however, had done the proper thing and waited for his return.

All of which seems a bit excessive. I remember reading in the Mishnah of a much more sensible arrangement in Palestine. Before a merchant embarked on his travels, he made a post-nup with his wife, the main effect of which was to set a limit on how long she had to wait. After the necessary time had elapsed, if he did not show, his wife was free to sell up his goods and start a new life with a new man.

But the story does reflect what must have been a common anxiety among men who had to travel for business, travel in those far off times being a rather uncertain business. So Freudian to that extent.

PS: I wonder now how much that other JJ, James Joyce, knew about all this when he named his famous book for the story. One anti-parallel being that Bloom's wife did have a lover.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/myths-and-legends.html.

Reference 2: http://www.julianjaynes.org/.