Marriage, Identity, and the Tale of Mestra in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women

Abstract

Fragment 43a of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women tells the lively tale of Mestra, a female shape-shifter who supports her father through serial marriages. I argue that this narrative demonstrates a typical mythic pattern, in which female shape-shifting is both a method of avoiding marriage and emblematic of an unmarried woman's unstable social position. I argue further that this version of Mestra's story in particular represents an attempt to mediate a question that was becoming increasingly important in sixth-century Athens, namely: to which household does a bride belong, her father's or her husband's?