In my research for my next comic I read the book Sacred Marriage in the Rituals of Greek Religion by

In my research for my next comic I read the book Sacred Marriage in the Rituals of Greek Religion by Aphrodite Avagianou (European University Studies, series 15, Classics, Vol.54, Peter Lang, 1991), and I thought that I should say a few words about it.Avagianou has a little different interpretation of hieros gamos (sacred marriage) than the majority of scholars before her, who have seen the ritual’s purpose to be the promotion of fertility, in the context of agriculture and vegetation of the nature. Rather, she sees it as a ritual of initiation and a rite of passage. “Human marriage as an institution of human society is guaranteed and sanctified by the model of sacred marriage; the latter borrows from the former all the necessary formalities of a wedding rite.”According to Avagianou, sacred marriage presupposes the following specific fundamentals:A wedding ceremony performed as if it were a human one.Immortal nature of both of the partners. A permanent marital union.Following these principles, Avagianou argues that the union of Demeter and Iasion, interpreted as a hieros gamos by previous scholars, does not belong here. Nothing indicates that Iasion was immortal and the union didn’t last. Another important detail is Demeter’s active role: “Homer, our earliest source, makes it clear that in the Cretan tradition it was Demeter who took the initiative in attracting Iasion’s interest for her. This detail is sufficient to overthrow the interpretation of this case as a hieros gamos, since it is contrary to the rules of Greek gamos - it may belong to Minoan religion: the female makes the choice. This has absolutely nothing to do with marriage and its arrangement as seen by Greeks, where the male plays the active role; and for Greeks, hieros gamos is modelled on the human one.”Likewise, she dismisses the union of Dionysus and the Basilinna at Athens. According to Avagianou, sacred marriage modelled upon human marriage occurs solely in the cases of Zeus and Hera, and of Hades and Kore-Persephone, but she sees them as two different kinds of hieros gamos. The union of Zeus and Hera is the prototype of the typical marital union, while Kore’s abduction by Hades is the mirror of human feelings prevailing in this social institution: "The events of premature marriage to an unknown husband at the command of a callous and remote father and the traumatic separation of mother and daughter fall to the same extent upon Kore and the human bride as well.“While this book was a quite interesting (though sometimes a bit difficult) read, I can’t help to feel that something is missing when you interpret these things solely in relation to ancient Greek marriage customs (just as the agricultural and fertility interpretations alone wouldn’t feel like the whole explanation, either).Image: relief believed to depict the marriage of Zeus and Hera, 470 BCE. -- source link

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