Hesiod's Works and Days is self-consciously a poem of the Iron Age. It is addressed to Iron Age men about how to manage the Iron Age human condition. The narrative ventures out of the Iron Age only to explain how we got here and how the present age compares to those which came before.Footnote 1 The Iron Age audience is addressed by a narrator who situates himself explicitly (and discontentedly) as a contemporary:
The Iron Age human condition is characterized first and foremost by the need to work. Men are at odds with the earth: unlike the Golden Race or those living pre-Pandora,Footnote 3 Iron Age men have to work for their livelihood.Footnote 4 Similarly, women are at odds with men: they pose a threat to production, poking around in granaries (373–5) and getting lustful just when the summer heat has the farmer worn out (586–7). And Hesiod predicts more conflict ahead: children will be at odds with parents (182), guests with hosts (183), and brothers with brothers (184). Indeed, he chooses a brother as a didactic addressee and a quarrel as a didactic setting to make this very point.Footnote 5
To manage this bleak Iron Age condition, men must work to make their oikos (household) self-sufficient rather than having to rely on others.Footnote 6 The farmer should be resourceful: weaving (538), sewing (544), and creating all his agricultural accoutrements seemingly single-handedly (423–36). He should focus on his own oikos as his first priority (οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα, ‘first of all a house’; 405) and distrust the outside world (οἴκοι βέλτɛρον ɛἶναι, ἐπɛὶ βλαβɛρὸν τὸ θύρηϕιν, ‘better to be at home, since the outside is more harmful’; 365). If help must be called for, it should be in the form of a forty-year-old farmhand who will concentrate on his task rather than being distracted by companions (443). Hesiod advises turning attention to one's own livelihood (ɛἰς ἔργον τρέψας μɛλɛτᾷς βίου, ‘having turned your attention to work, you take care of your livelihood’; 316) as opposed to looking longingly at the rewards reaped by others: Perses, on the other hand, who is Hesiod's negative foil, has to be warned repeatedly against depending on others (27–41, 293–319, 394–404). By extension, even the poet should go it alone, relying as little as possible on the Muses: in the proem (1–10), Hesiod asks the Muses to sing of Zeus, whose powers he extols; then, in a reversal of audience expectation, he departs from the Muses' song. Although the focus of the proem, Zeus will be replaced by the importance of work and justice as the main themes of the poem proper, and as such the Muses are being invited to sing a song tangential to Hesiod's own.Footnote 7
In this article I show how these Iron Age concerns are reflected in Hesiod's suspicion of women. I argue that Hesiod's (predominantly negative) views on women in the Works and Days are inextricably linked with his persistent anxieties about life in the Iron Age. That Hesiod's approach to gender in Works and Days is an expression of cultural anxiety has been the subject of studies by (for example) Patricia Marquardt and Froma Zeitlin, with Marylin Arthur and Nicole Loraux (among others) exploring corresponding concerns in the Theogony.Footnote 8 I hope to complement such studies by pinpointing the ideal of self-sufficiency as a driving force behind Hesiod's view of women, and by showing how gender in the Works and Days is framed in terms of balance (itself a concern throughout the poem: μέτρα ϕυλάσσɛσθαι, ‘keep the right measures’; 694). Hesiod's suspicion of women in the Works and Days is driven both by concern for the productivity of the individual oikos and by a perceived imbalance between the sexes. Women can therefore be tolerated when they fulfil a low-risk roleFootnote 9 or when the genders are in equilibrium. Further, I add to the scholarship on gender in the Works and Days by showing that this attitude to women can be traced in the Days section too: I argue for a link between the earlier and latter parts of the poem which has mostly been ignored.
I
The trouble started with Pandora. In the mythical section of the Works and Days her creation and the ensuing threat she poses are emphasized.Footnote 10 We can see this already through a comparison between the two versions of the myths of Prometheus and the first woman in the Theogony (534–601) and the Works and Days (42–105): the Theogony concentrates on Prometheus (thirty-four lines; seventeen in the Works and Days), the Works and Days on Pandora (forty-six lines; twenty-nine in the Theogony); furthermore, the organization of allusions in each version is such that the Prometheus story is consistently abbreviated in the Works and Days, and the Pandora myth abbreviated in the Theogony. These relative proportions and the distribution of allusions are driven by the respective focuses of each poem. Prometheus is of more importance to the Theogony because there the focus is on gods and the perspective is that of the gods.Footnote 11 In the Works and Days, however, the two stories are included primarily to explain why humankind must work (47–8), so Pandora is crucial because she epitomizes the ‘male dilemma’:Footnote 12 sexual desire vs. economic stability, and family continuity vs. problems of property and inheritance.Footnote 13
From Pandora on, women have consumed resources and increased the need for productivity. Hesiod warns of this most pointedly at 373–5:
Perhaps most striking here is the hapax πυγοστόλος, which has succeeded in inspiring all manner of detailed discussion about what exactly women do to attract attention to their rear.Footnote 14 The word has proved a distraction – just like the woman it describes. It characterizes the exchange between the man and the woman: she is busy with something else, something detrimental to him, turning her back while he can see nothing but her. This is not an equal, direct, face-to-face encounter. Further, the main threats that Hesiod describes are the woman's appearance and her words: both can be linked back to Pandora, the καλὸν κακόν (‘the beautiful evil’; Theog. 585) whose beautiful appearance stood in contrast to her deceitful nature. Hermes gave Pandora αἱμυλίους τɛ λόγους (‘wily words’; 78), just as this woman speaks αἱμύλα.
Women are, however, a necessary evil. Female fertility is an integral part of Hesiod's ideal state: the Just City is visited by Εἰρήνη κουροτρόϕος (‘child-rearing Peace’; 228) and its women bear children like their parents (τίκτουσιν δὲ γυναῖκɛς ἐοικότα τέκνα γονɛῦσιν; 235), whereas the women of the Unjust City bear no children (οὐδὲ γυναῖκɛς τίκτουσιν; 244). The link between women and justice persists in the conception of Dike (Justice) herself:
The abuse of Dike is phrased in terms of sexual violence.Footnote 15 That Justice is depicted as a violated maiden (παρθένος; 256) shows that, despite Hesiod's mistrust of women, he concedes that they are to be accepted and indeed protected when they fulfil a contributory role.
Hesiod gives advice on procreation and on marriage, albeit reluctantly. His suspicion is evident at 702–5:
The first two lines form a balanced pair, the second two then expand on the idea of the bad wife. The structure suggests that Hesiod appropriated a traditional balanced proverb, then tethered it to his own purposes: 704–5 sway the balance in a distinctly Hesiodic, negative direction.Footnote 16 Indeed, the latter lines have particular resonance in terms of Hesiod's poetry. For example, the hapax δɛιπνολόχης (704) should perhaps best be translated as ‘an ambusher-at-dinner’, a distraction which recalls the cajoling woman of lines 373–5.Footnote 17 The paradoxical metaphor ɛὕɛι ἄτɛρ δαλοῖο (‘burn without a brand’; 705) recalls earlier associations in the poem between women and fire or heat: at line 57 Pandora was given in exchange for fire (ἀντὶ πυρός), and in midsummer the heat which scorches men's heads only makes women more lustful (586; see further below).
The threat of women bringing men to early old age (ὠμῷ γήραϊ; 705) is also found at Odyssey 15.357, a parallel which created a variant reading in the Works and Days (though the thrust of the passage is quite different, as there it is the woman's death which ages her husband). However, it seems to me that in the context of the Works and Days it takes on a greater, even hyperbolic, significance. In the apocalyptic passage of the myth of the Races, Zeus will destroy the Iron Race when children are born grey at the temples (ɛὖτ᾽ ἂν γɛινόμɛνοι πολιοκρόταϕοι τɛλέθωσιν; 181). The echo of this premature aging here suggests that women will be this Race's downfall. Women for Hesiod are not only associated with the current Iron Age condition, but they actually put it at risk and threaten further deterioration. That nothing is ῥίγιον than a bad wife has, I would suggest, an even wider resonance. I translated ῥίγιον as ‘worse’, to simplify the antithesis with ἄμɛινον (‘better’), but this does not quite do the word justice. It suggests something horrible, something at which to shudder: a rather severe description of one's wife. At Iliad 19.325 Achilles says:
The resonance intensifies the force of ῥίγιον in the Hesiodic passage, linking a bad wife to the very model of the troublesome woman, and perhaps even hints at a kind of blame speech which echoes throughout the early hexameter tradition.Footnote 18
To minimize the risk posed by women, Hesiod offers practical solutions: he recommends a family that fits with his Iron Age ideal of self-sufficiency. For productive, self-sufficient oikos living, one should not stray too far from the homestead but should prize neighbours: the γɛίτων has already been introduced at line 23; at lines 343–9 Hesiod delineates (at uncharacteristic length) the benefits of having good neighbours. At line 700 he applies the same rationale to the ideal choice of wife: ἥτις σέθɛν ἐγγύθι ναίɛι (‘she who lives nearby’; see further below). Furthermore, the perpetuation of one's line is presented in confined terms: at line 376 Hesiod advises having only one heir, so that the oikos will not be diminished by division. As Goldhill notes: ‘The tension between the danger of having one son and the danger of having several sons is integral to the political dynamics of the Greek oikos’,Footnote 19 and indeed the Homeric poems offer a glimpse into the counter-side to this worry, as in the Homeric world of warfare to be mounogenes is a bad thing.Footnote 20
Because of its Iron Age trajectory, the timescale of the Works and Days is predominantly cyclical: it is concerned with the present age, and how we should always behave in it. The seasons revolve; the good and bad days come round again and again; fable is used to highlight facets of the human condition that are constant. Hesiod begins his Calendar in autumn, despite the fact that elsewhere he specifies that the farmer's year begins in the spring:Footnote 21 this impression of two beginnings chasing one another emphasizes the circularity of the seasons, the revolving years where each depends on the results of the last. One exception proves the rule: in the myth of the Races there is a direct linear progression from gold, through silver, bronze, and heroes, to iron. Here Hesiod can depart from the cyclical structure because he is glancing away from the inexorability of the Iron Age back to a time of legend.Footnote 22 This cyclical arrangement of Hesiod's teachings urges the farmer to follow the pattern of the seasons, to understand what needs to be done when, and to be conscious of the right time in all things.Footnote 23 Do this (he says), and you begin to handle the ever-present problem of the Iron Age: work.
In this all-important seasonality, however, men and women are at odds:
The parallel structure of line 586 establishes a polarity, weighing the two sexes against each other. The comparison shows not parallel but conflicting behaviour: as Clay notes, ‘nature affects male and female in opposite ways, so that the sexes are eternally out of synch’.Footnote 24 There is an imbalance between the sexes, particularly evident in the summer: a complex season with mixed hard labour under strict time constraints (the harvest, 571–81; threshing and management, 597–608) and a time of enforced inactivity (582–96). Hesiod's negative attitude to women is thus driven not only by the threat they pose to production but also by their lack of synchronicity with the very cycle of labour.
This may have particular relevance to Hesiod himself as poet. The summer is heralded by the cicada:
In one tradition surrounding this creature, the cicada is a divine singer with links to the poet. The sound of the cicada is described as ‘song’ which projects well (583 λιγυρὴν…ἀοιδήν): at Hom. Il. 3.151–2 the Trojan elders are likened to cicadas with a ‘silver’ voice (ὄπα λɛιριόɛσσαν; the cicadas there too sit in a tree: δɛνδρέῳ ἐϕɛζόμɛνοι). The connection with the poet is realized by Hesiod in his description of his own song at line 659 λιγυρῆς…ἀοιδῆς, which mirrors line 583. As the cicada heralds the ‘festival’ or leisure season, there may be a suggestion here that summer with its enforced inactivity is the perfect time for song and poetry:Footnote 25 but at this time, women get in the way.
Despite this negative characterization, women can fit into Hesiod's vision of the ideal oikos when they fulfil a low-risk role – although even in that case some suspicion remains. For example, the tender-skinned maiden is described through a vignette surprisingly gentle in tone:
The reason for this tone is that the primary function of the vignette, like most of the winter passage, is description. The section on winter (493–563) has been considered by many to be inconsistent with the latter part of the Works and Days. Most nineteenth-century editors rejected the passage,Footnote 26 and Evelyn-White argued that only lines 493–503 are genuine.Footnote 27 This is mainly because of the highly descriptive nature of the passage – seen to be inappropriate in a Calendar meant to give practical advice – and the disproportionate number of lines given to it.Footnote 28 However, as more recent work such as that of Stephanie Nelson has shown, the primary focus of the Calendar is not practical instruction but a coherent and descriptive picture of the seasonally revolving life on a farm and the importance in all things of hard work and the right time.Footnote 29 The length and pacing of the various parts of the Calendar reflect the seasons' activity. As Nelson notes, ‘The length of the section reflects not how long the month of January is, but how long it seems to be. There is no task’.Footnote 30 Hesiod moulds the form to fit the content, describing a season lacking in activity through leisurely narrative.
The girl in winter is introduced as a παρθɛνικῆς ἁπαλόχροος (‘tender-skinned maiden’): this is one of the many noun-adjective pairs which make this section feel descriptive (similarly πολυχρύσου Ἀϕροδίτης, ‘much-golden Aphrodite’, 521; τέρɛνα χρόα, ‘delicate skin’, 522).Footnote 31 In the rhythm of the passage the girl allows a moment of serenity in a tale of struggle. She is a vehicle of contrast, both with the preceding old man bowling along in the wind and the following ἀνόστɛος (the boneless one gnawing at its feet). So in order to facilitate this gentle, descriptive tone, Hesiod chooses a woman whose youth, vulnerability (τέρɛνα χρόα, 522), and innocence (οὔ πω ἔργ’ ɛἰδυῖα πολυχρύσου Ἀϕροδίτης, ‘not yet knowing the works of much-golden Aphrodite’; 521) mean that she does not yet constitute a threat to production. Although all women are a drain on resources to a certain extent, only adult women can really cause the ‘male dilemma’: it is significant that Hesiod describes the maiden in detail, but mentions her mother only in passing.Footnote 32 Furthermore, the maiden is good in so far as she epitomizes the inside: the oikos and self-sufficiency.Footnote 33 One can imagine a father who has worked hard enjoying a sight like this: his daughter taking a warm bath even in the depth of winter, next to her mother, at home.
Yet despite the gentle tone and the descriptive impetus, Hesiod's suspicions persist. In a poem so focused on the importance of hard work, a scene of such complete idleness as this cannot be without pointed negative connotation. The maiden is ‘unprofitable’;Footnote 34 she stays beside her mother (ϕίλῃ παρὰ μητέρι μίμνɛι, 520), just like the childish Silver Race who would ultimately be destroyed.Footnote 35 The Silver Race are a matriarchal society with no male role models, and this situation explains why, when they finally do grow up, they do not grow out of childish sibling rivalry. That the maiden stays inside may in some respects fit with Works and Days ideals, however there are negative connotations with the formulation ἔντοσθɛ μίμνɛι (‘she stays inside’; 520): it recalls Theog. 598, ἔντοσθɛ μένοντɛς, used of the idle drone bees in the simile describing women.Footnote 36 Even her claims to innocence are not as straightforward as they first appear: she is said to be ignorant of the works of Aphrodite, yet she is actually linked with the goddess. The description of her bathing and anointing herself (522–3) is a type scene, which often had as the central figure Aphrodite herself, and in any case featured prominently in bridal preparations before the wedding ceremony.Footnote 37 As Pandora earlier in the poem stood in for Aphrodite in a dressing-up type scene,Footnote 38 so here the maiden stands in for the goddess in this bathing topos. This link with Aphrodite, and with Pandora by proxy, points to an uncomfortable awareness on Hesiod's part, even here, of the future potential for sexual allure and the Iron Age problems that it brings.
Similarly, even Hesiod's description of the ideal woman who lives nearby betrays some anxiety:
A man should choose a woman from his neighbourhood so that she is a known quantity: he can do his research, and find a wife who will not bring him shame. Reputation is a recurring concern in the Works and Days: the two Strifes are described in terms of praise (ἐπαινήσɛιɛ, 12) and blame (ἐπιμωμητή, 13); wealth is prized for the κῦδος (‘renown’) it brings (313); if you plough at the wrong time, few will admire you (παῦροι δέ σɛ θηήσονται, 482); gossip is reciprocal (721), and Rumour is a goddess (760–4). However, the fact that the girl lives nearby is not necessarily without risk. The formula recalls an earlier passage:
The impetus of these lines in their context is apotreptic: Hesiod wants to turn his audience away from κακότης towards ἀρɛτή (‘goodness’).Footnote 40 He makes the point that κακότης is deceptive: she seems an attractive choice because she is convenient and she fits with the ideal of self-sufficiency, but in reality she only brings trouble. With this in mind, it is difficult to avoid reading into the repetition of ἐγγύθι ναίɛι (‘she lives very nearby’) at line 700 yet another reference to female deception, or at least find ammunition against even the most promising wife within Hesiod's own work.
II
The discord between the sexes continues into the Days (765–828). This constitutes an element of consistency which might help us to reach a greater understanding of how this section fits with the rest of the poem. No ancient critic is known to have questioned the authenticity of the Days. Although there are relatively few references in antiquity to passages after 764, the citations begin in the sixth century BC with Heraclitus and continue with, for example, Herodotus.Footnote 41 Since the nineteenth century, however, many editors and critics have suspected this section of being inauthentic: a later interpolation, or a separate poem which at some point coalesced with the Works and Days. The first to express this suspicion was Twesten; in his edition Wilamowitz-Moellendorf went so far as to delete the whole section; in the Oxford Classical Text Solmsen brackets the section.Footnote 42 Such suspicions are methodologically questionable, however, as they are based not on historical or textual evidence but on perceived problems of inconsistency and tone, such as the prevalence of superstitious advice, which contrasts with earlier, rational teachings in the Works and Days; the use of the lunar calendar in contrast to earlier solar and stellar markers; the general disorder of the section and its monotonous and compressed style; material discrepancies with the Hesiodic farm.
There have, on the other hand, been scholars who accept the section as authentic.Footnote 43 West, for example, addressed and rightly countered each and every one of the objections to the Days.Footnote 44 However, even some of the scholars who accept the lines do so with reservations: what is the section doing here and how well is it integrated within the rest of the poem? Hamilton and Kelly have offered useful structural analyses of the poem, incorporating the Days.Footnote 45 Lardinois, in a persuasive article, showed that the Days should be accepted not just because their authenticity cannot be conclusively disproved, but because they cohere with themes found elsewhere in the Works and Days.Footnote 46 He traces one particular overarching concern from earlier parts of the Works and Days to the Days: men in the Iron Age must live day-to-day.Footnote 47 Clay takes this argument one step further, showing that this theme has a dynamic aspect as it develops and intensifies over the course of the poem.Footnote 48 In support of the conclusions of Lardinois and Clay, then, I offer a further element of coherence: Hesiod's attitude to women. In Lardinois' list of the passages in the Days that resonate with earlier parts of the Works and Days he includes passages on marriage, and the verbal parallel between Pandora (78) and line 789 (which I address below).Footnote 49 However, the coherence with the rest of the poem in terms of Hesiod's attitude to women has not been fully addressed.
Different days are good for boys and for girls to be born.Footnote 50 As with the dysfunctional midsummer, the right time is different for men and for women. In keeping with Hesiod's androcentrism in the Works and Days (his explicit and implicit addressees are men, his advice is for the male farmer), while four different days are specified as good for a boy to be born, only one is specified for a girl. It is telling that on the middle fourth, the day specified for a girl to be born (794–5), sheep, oxen, dogs, and mules may be tamed (πρηΰνɛιν ἐπὶ χɛῖρα τιθɛίς, ‘tame them having placed your hand on them’; 797): the connection suggests that the woman Hesiod prescribes for the ideal oikos must herself be kept under control.
However, there is one day on which the sexes coincide, and this grabs Hesiod's attention:
The first ninth is propitious, and is emphasized as such. It is described as παναπήμων (‘entirely harmless’; 811), then Hesiod coins a correspondingly emphatic negative term at line 813: οὔ ποτɛ πάγκακον (‘never entirely evil’). The question is: what makes this day so good? At lines 782–3 Hesiod has already made a transition, both chronological and associative, from planting to childbearing: here again he slides between the two ideas, which are very close in his mind. Combined, then, the two examples in line 812 (ϕυτɛυέμɛν ἠδὲ γɛνέσθαι, ‘to be conceived and to be born’) emphasize procreation; and procreation is emphasized here rather than, for example, at lines 783–801 (a longer excursus on childbearing) because, whereas there the sexes were imbalanced, on this day it is good for both a boy and a girl to be born. This is what makes the day so striking. The emphatic enjambment at lines 812–13 makes the point. On this day, one of Hesiod's persistent worries is resolved.
We might read another instance of harmonious gender relations at Op. 776–9:
The spider's natural sphere of activity coincides with a woman's proper role: weaving. Indeed, it looks forward to line 779 in which a woman performs this very task, and the connection is emphasized by a twofold juxtaposition of verb and noun from the same root: at line 777 the spider νῇ νήματ᾽ (‘spins its web’); at line 779 the woman ἱστὸν στήσαιτο (‘sets up her loom’). The weaving woman is a common trope in archaic poetry: in fact, most of Homer's female characters weave at some point or other.Footnote 51 In the Iliad, Hector sets up the activity of weaving as a foil for warfare when he commands Andromache:
Telemachus gives the very same instruction to his mother, Penelope, at Odyssey 1.356–8 and 21.350–3; and at Odyssey 6.52–5 Arete is differentiated from her husband, Alcinous, by her sitting at the hearth spinning yarn. Weaving, then, delineates gender roles and symbolizes domestic stability. As the spider looks ahead to the woman weaving, perhaps the ἴδρις (the ‘knowing one’) marks the other side of the gender divide: just like these Homeric examples, Hesiod may be differentiating between gendered roles. The absolute use of ἴδρις as a noun is unparalleled and prompts us to wonder who or what this ‘expert’ is. From the scholia, Tzetzes and Moschopulus, to most modern scholarship, ἴδρις has been interpreted as a kenning for the ant.Footnote 52 The ant was proverbial for wisdom, and the association of the spider and the ant is an Indo-European motif.Footnote 53 But what is it doing here? The use of two animal markers in such quick succession is striking. It seems to me that the juxtaposition marks a division of labour between the sexes: the spider is the woman weaving, the ant the man making stores. No wonder the twelfth is such a good day: men and women are working harmoniously in their respective, productive, gender roles.
Just as in earlier parts of the Works and Days, in the Days women are accepted when they perform a low-risk function – and yet suspicion persists. At line 776 the spider is portrayed as ἀɛρσιπότητος (‘high-soaring’), an unusual and striking compound as it is made up of two verbal elements.Footnote 54 It suggests that the spider, though performing her proper role, is unruly and difficult to control. Line 779 describes the day on which a woman sets up her loom and begins her work (τῇ δ᾽ ἱστὸν στήσαιτο γυνὴ προβάλοιτό τɛ ἔργον). Unlike most other appearances of a woman in the Works and Days, this line does not seem to be heavily charged. This is because here she is doing a woman's ἔργον, weaving: not only is she is firmly located in the domestic sphere, but she is also fulfilling a contributory role rather than posing a threat to productivity. However, here we come full circle to the Pandora myth. The line suggests a parallel with lines 63–4, in which Athena is to teach Pandora ἔργα, specified as πολυδαίδαλον ἱστὸν ὑϕαίνɛιν (‘to weave a much-worked web’): as Pandora created problems, so every woman upholds her legacy. This suspicion of the weaving woman is embedded in the early hexameter tradition. Just as weaving symbolizes domestic stability, so its interruption represents the disruption of the household. At Iliad 6.456 Hector fears that after the fall of Troy Andromache will be taken away to work at another man's loom: that transferral of Andromache and her weaving will symbolize the end of Hector's household. At Iliad 22.448, when Andromache hears lamentation from the walls, ‘the shuttle dropped from her hand to the ground’ (χαμαὶ δέ οἱ ἔκπɛσɛ κɛρκίς): the dropping of the weaving shuttle signifies impending domestic upheaval. Furthermore, Homeric women often use weaving to take for themselves some agency, some control over events – an uncomfortable prospect for their menfolk. For example, Penelope controls her own destiny by refusing to complete her weaving; and by weaving the events unfolding on the battlefield Helen steps on the toes of the poet himself. No wonder Hesiod remains a little unsettled.
The striking combination between acceptance of women and suspicion of them reflects the intractable Iron Age condition. Through self-sufficiency, through working hard, and through thinking for oneself, it can be managed: but it cannot be resolved. Never, it seems, are all the problems resolved in one fell swoop. The woman weaving resolves the problem of labour: in the very moment that she works, she does not threaten the oikos but contributes to it. However, as a woman she is still (from Hesiod's androcentric point of view) on the wrong side of what is right. She is subtly linked with Pandora, and so continues to threaten as a καλὸν κακόν. And, come summer, she will once again clash with her Iron Age man's all-important cycle of labour.
