Aphrodite is the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty. As the story goes, or at least one version of it, Uranus husband of Gaia imprisoned all of his children so none of them would take over his rule.
Finally his child Cronus was able to ambush his father and castrated him. He threw the um, package, into the sea where it frothed up and the Goddess Aphrodite appeared. Afros is Greek for “foam of the sea.” Also, it is thought that Aphrodite’s connection to the sea is a reason some seafood is considered an aphrodisiac.
Aphrodite ended up marrying Hephaestus, the deformed God, son of Hera. Still, she had plenty of affection on the side. After all, her marriage was arranged, and most of the Greek Gods and Goddesses were polygamists (unless they were virgins).
I like Aphrodite because she reminds us that there is nothing wrong with being beautiful on the outside as well as the inside. She gets a bad rap, but I think that’s because Western society likes to tell everyone that humans should be a monogamous species. I’m really not sure where that rumor started – after all, the Old Testament, the Talmud, and the Qu’ran are rife with stories about people with multiple relationships and marriages. So are many Eastern religions, but those don’t have the larger influence in the country I live in.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, all of the stories say that men have the right to have multiple relationships and marriages. Aphrodite, as a woman, doesn’t have the “right” to have multiple relationships. Or so they so.
At any rate, Aphrodite wasn’t ashamed of her beauty. Or her body. No matter what you may think about anything else she may have done, I think we can all agree that being comfortable with our physical selves is a beautiful thing.
Comments
7 responses to “Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty”
Nicely written. 🙂 Loved it. 🙂 There are very less posts to read about mythology.
Hi,
I love this post. The Goddess(es) I would choose to pledge allegiance to, if any, from Greek mythology would be (in order of importance): 1) Psyche, Goddess of the soul; 2) Athena, Goddess of wisdom; 3) Terpischore, Muse of dance and music; and 4) whichever muse fits with what I am writing about – right now it’s Melpomene, Muse of tragedy and Clio, muse of history.
It may seem strange that I put Athena below Psyche but I think Athena would have the wisdom to understand it in this case – one cannot hope for wisdom without addressing the needs of one’s soul. And wisdom is gained through experience after trialing the soul just as Psyche underwent trials to gain immortal status.
So thank you for this and for the reminder that we must see beauty in every part of us. 😀
Athena was much more than the Goddess of Wisdom – she was pretty much the Goddess of everything and the most popular Greek Goddess to boot. I doubt she would mind as she was getting plenty of attention from elsewhere. I like Athena, and the Pegasus is apparently my spirit animal (Athena is often pictured with Pegasus), but you know, she’s one of the virgin Goddesses. If it weren’t for that, I’d be all for her. But I see no reason to deny our sexuality – so I went completely over in the opposite direction and picked Aphrodite! 🙂 I’m not very familiar with Psyche – I’ll look into her.
Hmm. Maybe because she arose from asexual reproduction (just the “ahem”, member, tossed into the sea led to her desire to effect multiple sexual encounters. We know we are from what we derive- or the complete opposite, after all!
I can’t think of anything to say to that, Roy. So I’ll just say, yep. 😉
Thanks for the reminder that we all have the right to be beautiful and comfortable with ourselves.
Thanks for getting that this post was more about that than some ancient being who may or may not exist. 😉