urite city is Argos. DIRECT COMPARISONHera and Frigg are two very similar goddesses. Both are the wives of the supreme gods of the respective religions, and both are the goddess associated with marriage. However, as in most of the Norse myths, Frigg plays a lesser role because she is female. This sets her apart from Hera. Hera had a fairly large role in the Greek myths, although most of her stories were about the same thing: the jealous revenge of Zeus' infidelities. This brings up an interesting point. Hera, being the goddess of marriage, is furious when people (especially Zeus) are adulterous. She takes many actions to try and stop these things from happening and if they do get by her, she does not make the lives of the offspring from the relationships easy. This is not the case, however, with Frigg. Odin is often unfaithful, but there seems to be no reaction from Frigg. Frigg also does not seem to be in the position to either speak to Odin about these other relationships or to even have the slightest thoughts about a revolt. This seems to be a recurring theme: Norse goddesses are definitely in an inferior position. If a mythology is taken as a reflection of the society that worships it, that leads to the conclusion that the Norse women had less stature than Greek women. If this is the case, it is very sad, for the Norse culture was more recent and one would hope that things would have progressed rather than regressed. In studying ancient Greek societies, women were generally not treated with anything approaching equality with the men (with a notable exception, perhaps, of Sparta). Does this mean that it was even worse for the wives of the Vikings? Was adultery condoned in the Norse society? It seems that it is in the myths. There were some instances in the Norse myths where people refused to indulge in extramarital affairs not because of their morals, but because they only had love for their husband/wife. They never said, "No I won't...
