Note 80 — Chapter VIII · Breaches of the Marriage Contract and Divorce

Even in regard to the legendary Penelope we have to remember that tradition relates certain facts about her that cast some reflection upon her normality. Why, for instance, was she thrown into the sea by her parents? Both of her parents came from Sparta, and the Spartans did not scruple to destroy abnormal children. In fact, they regarded it as a religious duty to do so. At the very beginning of her life, therefore, some suspicion is cast which entitles us to question whether she can have been as desirable as the numbers of her suitors leads us to believe. Further, we may quite pertinently inquire what it was that ever induced Odysseus to spend twenty years of his life away from his wife, unless there were some secret and profound reason. It is true that his adventures are presented to us in the narrative as being forced upon him. But who has ever known an adventurer whose adventures were not inevitable?