Lessons from the Greek Goddess Hera

In Greek mythology, Hera is the wife of Zeus, and while she is said to be very beautiful, presiding over marriage, birth, and many aspects of women’s lives, she is not the most popular of the Greek goddesses. She is often seen as jealous and spiteful, causing problems for Zeus’s many lovers and illegitimate children. But there is some evidence that Hera was around long before Zeus ever came into the picture.

An Ancient, Pre-Patriarchal Matriarch

Pre-Hellenic Greece had a thriving goddess culture, and Athena, Hera, Demeter, Persephone, Pandora, and several others were worshiped before any of the male gods showed up. As Charlene Spretnak explains in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, beginning around 2500 BCE, waves of invasions by northern groups including the Dorians brought the concept of the male gods—and patriarchy itself—to these matriarchal societies.

From that perspective, the story of Hera may represent the forced marriage between the invaders and the invaded. She now had to share her rule with a man who thought himself in charge. She remembers being sovereign, being a queen, and taking care of women, marriage, and relationships—and now she has to live in a world where marriage (and sex) is mostly decided by men to a woman’s detriment. As a goddess of women, no wonder she was in such a bad mood all the time.

A Goddess of Sovereignty

In these ancient pre-patriarchal times, Hera represented the three phases of a woman’s life, which also corresponded to three phases of the moon: The new moon was the Maiden, the full moon was the Mother, and the waning moon was the Crone, coming into the wisdom of later life. Every four years, a festival called the Heraean would include races where women would run in age categories possibly relating to those three phases of life. This precursor to the Olympic races and marathons far predated the boys’ races.

It is said that every year Hera would bathe in the Kanathos spring on Argos, where her virginity would be returned to her. This word, “virgin,” comes from the Greek parthenos, which refers to a young girl, but doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with one’s sexuality. The word means something more like “one unto herself”: a woman who could create life and have her power without the influence of a man. Several of the Greek goddesses were considered virgins including Hera and Athena Parthenos, whose temple, the Parthenon, still stands. “Virginity” was more of a statement of power than having anything to do with sexuality.

Hera is often called “cow-eyed” in the ancient Greek stories, likely referencing her earlier incarnation as a fertility goddess who presided over the sacred marriage between the cow and the bull, which ensured the fertility of the people and the land. She is often associated with flowers, while the land and is sometimes related to the goddess Gaia, indicating that Hera was likely a sort of earth goddess before Zeus came into the picture.

A Protector of Women

Hera may be best known for her role in the myths of Heracles (or Hercules), who is the half-human, half-god son of Zeus and Alcmene. Hera sent witches to try to prevent Alcmene from giving birth to Hercules. When that didn’t work, she sent serpents (an ancient symbol of the pre-patriarchal goddesses) to kill Hercules as an infant. Her torments continued throughout Hercules’ mythic life, and some say Hercules and Hera eventually became friends in the end after the demigod rescued Hera from a rape.

As the protector of the rights of married women and as a matriarchal earth goddess whose world was turned upside down by her forced marriage to Zeus, Hera’s wrath might make a bit more sense. When Zeus stepped out on her—often without the consent of the women he was consorting with, spawning male heroes who would further his patriarchal aims—it threatened Hera’s supremacy not only as Zeus’s wife, but as Queen of Olympus, Hera Parthenos, the earth goddess who was once supreme.

In the stories, Hera is often seen as the loser, the villain, unable to completely enact her revenge against Zeus, punishing instead the women Zeus had been targeting. It’s fair enough to blame her for this, as targeting innocent bystanders isn’t generally the best way to get your power back. But it was likely impossible to punish Zeus, King of the Gods, so her anger had to be directed at his lovers and children instead. As unfair and fruitless as this revenge generally was for Hera, she was trying to find a way to reclaim her lost power as a virgin goddess of the land who reigned alone, without the influence of a man.

One of the fascinating aspects of Greek mythology is how human the gods can be—how they make mistakes, get it wrong, and act out of jealousy and rage rather than calm benevolence. What would it have been like for Hera to be understood and respected in her place? What if we saw her errors as having come from the trauma of invasion and colonization? How do we see her now as we come to understand what was stolen from her? If she represented the rage of a people overtaken by invaders, could we have more compassion for her petty cruelty?

Read more about spiritual lessons from Lilith, goddess of righteous rage.