Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> exclude sexist lines that do exist in the play: e.g.
> >"'Tis a hard thing, by the two goddesses it is! for a woman to sleep
> >alone without ever a strong male in her bed. But there, peace must
> >come first". . . .
> >
> >For a play born in a fundamentally sexist society --
Minor correction. Athens was not a sexist society -- a term best confined to modern capitalist regimes -- it was patriarchal, with the male dominated household the fundamental productive unit.
I've never read any extensive commentary on Aristophanes, so this is quite speculative -- but perhaps it was this patriarchal basis, social relations in which women are both formally and substantively subordinated within a productive rather than merely consuming household, that gave the play some of its sting. Also, the women in it are from the ruling class, and St. Croix has suggested that while Athenian peasant women were peasants, ruling class women actually formed a distinct (and subordinated) _class_. That probably doesn't hold water, but that the suggestion can even be made is illuminating.
In any case, Yoshie is certainly correct that a play's "original meaning" (whatever that is) is not binding on a modern production of it.
Carrol