Crete is fascinating. Not only because so much of it is unknown, but many of the myths that survived about it are unusually bizarre. Zeus ate his wife Metis, who came from Crete. Zeus is ridiculously licentious, but that’s just unusually twisted. Similarly King Minos’s wife mated with a bull to create the Minotaur??? Wtf? Sounds like something some high school boys would make up about their English teacher. Even Theseus treats the woman who helps him cruelly. These make me think of two things: the men were either compensating or reacting to some female dominated culture, or the Minoans had gotten so cruel by the time of their downfall, that somebody had to do something about it and put them in their place.
Either way…
When Sir Arthur Evans galavanted into Knossos, excavated and “restored” the palace structure, one of the things noted (besides all the labrys) were all the female figurines. So dominate were these female figures, doning headdresses of poppy flowers and other items, that he was convinced that before the Mycenaean invasion, Crete worshiped a female goddess. Now, he took this further and said it was a snake goddess, even heavily “restoring” the remains of some figurines to be holding snakes, but seeing so many female figures supports the idea that they did worship a female goddess on Crete.
And it makes sense. With their men out at sea trading, females probably dominated Crete. So you have a King, organizing excursions, stepping on a boat, risking his life at sea and making trades with other cities. He spends most of his time traveling and trading, so he needs somebody to safely manage his estates and people and lands on the island. He needs somebody harvesting saffron, and looking after the snails to produce purple dye, producing vases, harvesting grain, and ensuring his bickering brother isn’t trying to steal his throne. Whose the person most suitable for the task?
His wife. She’s always on the island. She’s taking care of things. She’s ensuring their sons and daughters are the next kings and queens of the island.
So you have this large island culture where the man’s status is heavily dependent on his wife and queen. So… Don’t get on her bad side. Don’t bring home bastards for her to raise. She won’t tolerate that. Your bastard might have “an accident” while you’re away on your boat… Don’t replace her with some other younger model because the King of Wilusa (Troy) or Egypt offered you their daughter. You can still have fun while you’re away, but don’t piss off your queen, the Priestess of the island.
I’d like to speculate further and say that perhaps this structure is the foundation of Greek King monogamy. It’s not to say monogamy was invented by Crete. Among the lower classes, monogamy was practiced throughout the ancient world and beyond, but monogamy among Kings was bizarre. Every King had a harem of several wives, serving as hostages to secure various regions and lower Kings from rebelling. Granted, there was always the high queen, usually deemed so by the greatest alliance. But, why did Greeks develop a culture of only having one wife, even in Athens where wives were completely dismissed.
Now, the theory goes that Crete thrived as a culture of successful traders, and then spread all along the coasts of Greece and Turkey. This is why they call Europa the Mother of Europe. A little arrogant I’d say, but perhaps this title was spread later by the Romans. Therefore, even if Crete didn’t set up colonies in these areas, they definitely influenced their cultures at the time.
So, if Crete birthed Greece, then perhaps we can find the foundation of their Greek King’s monogamy in Crete Island culture.
Perhaps we can look at these later Greek cultures to figure out what this earlier Cretian culture was. I’m suggesting that perhaps the Queens dominated and controlled the lands of Crete because of what we see in Spartan Culture. Wives managed the estates while their men were away at war. We can possibly map the origins of this to an island-centric culture of wives managing the estates while their men were at sea. Similar to later male-domineering Athen’s culture, which could have been a backlash to women managing everything. Athenian women managed the household. They had little other rights, but the fact that their men still only kept one wife and not several, must have come from somewhere. And notably, they did name their city after Athena, the goddess that popped out of Zeus’s head after he ate Metis.
Now, that’s not to say Crete was an island of badass Spartan/Athena type ladies rocking around Amazonian/Lesbos style. Or maybe it was. Either way, it wasn’t all just ladies, as the mini goddess statues and murals indicate, but probably more likely that the men worshiped their god(s) while at sea, died off more quickly when their boats sank, and the women preserved the culture. And as the Sparta saying goes, “Healthy strong women make healthy strong boys.”
Which leads me to, if the pre-invasion Minoan society was managed and ruled by wives, then what if King Minos was the title of Crete’s Queen?
