The Misogyny Behind Aphrodite and Hephaestus.
A feminist dissection of the "fix-it" retelling.
The origins of the marriage between Hephaestus and Aphrodite are well-known, if not slightly varied. Those who follow the story of the Francois Vase and descriptions by Pausanias accept a tale where Hephaestus, cast down from Olympus as a baby for his lameness, fashions a throne that traps his mother. As a reward for freeing her, he claims Aphrodite as his bride, who was offered up as a prize for whoever managed to get Hephaestus to free his mother. Those who follow more text-based stories believe the tale that Zeus gave her to Hephaestus as a way to avoid the gods warring over each other for the favor of his most wanton daughter. Later writers such as Quintus Smyrnaeus attribute a golden chalice so fine that, as payment, Zeus rewarded the smith with his loveliest daughter—Aphrodite. In all major tales, Aphrodite is not a willing bride.
This is hardly unusual, and is the case for most godly couplings as well as Ancient Greek marriage norms at the time, the daughter is kept in the father’s home until she is wed, then passed to the husband. The notable difference in framing here is how different Aphrodite functions when compared to a traditional daughter figure. Aphrodite’s status as a primordial is changed post-Homeric writings, as Homer (or the oral tradition mass functioning as “Homer”) changes her from a standalone goddess to another child of Zeus; this was highly likely due to the way organized patriarchal family structures became more strict and integrated. This change from primordial power to lesser power of Zeus is reflected as well in the marriage, as her being a daughter, she is denoted as Zeus’s property, hence his ability to sell her to Hephaestus. Despite this, Aphrodite herself, as daughter of Dione, still retains the power with which she was crowned as primordial–she has domain over all sex, animals, man, gods, goddesses (with the exception), and as such rules over her father as an unchainable force anyway. This is where her marriage tale differs from, perhaps, a Kore. Aphrodite is not a daughter. Aphrodite will not be contained.
While there is no concrete timeline of events in mythology, most writers place her relationship with Ares as pre-marriage to Hephaestus, noting that infant Eros was present beforehand, with Harmonia born as a result of the affair; changing occasionally to Phobos and Deimos being born mid-affair as well as Harmonia, but most often the twins are placed afterwards. It is here I would like to first make the point of the symbolism: Harmonia, goddess of marital concord and peace, is born not of the actual marriage, but a secondary coupling of lovers outside of marital bounds. That a goddess of marital harmony should be born not of wedlock, but of love, suggests something surprisingly profound for Ancient Greece: that Love’s truest partnerships were never defined by contracts or patriarchal bargains, but by mutual desire and consent. This should be noted as a more symbolic expression of the marriage’s stifling nature. Phobos and Deimos follow similarly, as gods whose terror can stretch into the fear of losing a loved one, a fear forbidden lovers may be familiar with.
Now that the timeline, as meaningless as that word is in this subject, is discussed, it is important to turn to the women involved in this affair: the first of which being the Kyprian Queen herself. Aphrodite’s most consistent and mythically supported lover is Ares. Their bond spans centuries of traditions and remains one of the few romantic pairings in Greek mythology with genuine longevity depicted throughout cult and myth. Ares is often misrepresented as a one-time affair, which is far from what we know now. Ares is mentioned so consistently alongside Aphrodite that the pair continued into Roman times, their hymns almost always mentioning the other. He is her equal and her chosen partner. Unlike Hephaestus, who was given Aphrodite as a prize, Ares is consistently portrayed as the one she returns to, again and again, and it is she who disarms him so effectively that the Orphic hymns call upon her to temper him in ritual.
This makes the attempt to romanticize or legitimize her marriage to Hephaestus all the more grating. The marriage, framed by almost every ancient source as either a trick, a transaction, or a trap, lacks the autonomy and choice that characterizes her other relationships. By contrast, her other lovers—Adonis and Anchises, most famously, though the list is long—reflect differently. Adonis embodies her sensual, mourning, and fertility-based nature, a youthful lover tied to cycles of death and rebirth, borrowed from one of Inanna’s shepherd boy. Anchises, a mortal seduced by her divine beauty, becomes the father of Aeneas, anchoring her firmly in the realm of mortal politics and ideas of classical destiny. Neither relationship is sanitized, but neither is cruelly moralized in modernity either.
Though it is Ares who remains central and who commands her jealousy. While most interpretations paint him as a brutish or cowardly war god, the Greek Ares, particularly when paired with Aphrodite, softens. In art and poetry, it is often Aphrodite who is given credit for “disarming” him, bringing peace to war, a trend so potent (and, to be honest, catchy), it continued into later artworks far into the common era. Their pairing is not accidental, nor merely lustful. It is reciprocal. In cult, in art, in myth, they appear side by side—often with their children, often enshrined together. In a pantheon full of coercion and imbalance, Aphrodite and Ares are almost shockingly mutual.
Retellings that paint her as faithless, shallow, or cruel for leaving Hephaestus reveal more about the writer than the goddess. They insist on moralizing a woman’s sexual choices while simultaneously erasing the validity of the relationships she chose, especially the one she maintained across centuries of storytelling. And worse, they ignore the rare moment in divine myth where a woman divests herself of an unwanted marriage and is allowed to love freely. While Hera divorces Zeus and regains her virginity as tradition, the modern idea of divorce is seldom found in myth. When it is, when Aphrodite displays it, it is treated with the same dismissive shame modern divorce is greeted with in real life. They ignore that Hephaestus, too, moves on. They ignore Aglaia. They ignore the Charities. They ignore the children. This outlook erases women, in their choices, in their love, in their families. How many people even know who Aglaia is?
Aphrodite continues her relationship with Ares, and Hephaestus eventually remarries Aglaia, the youngest of the Charites (or Graces), goddesses of splendor and joy. She is discussed in the Odyssey as his second wife, and is said to help around the forge, a trait shown in painted art as well. Both Aphrodite's and Hephaestus’s second unions are peaceful and mutual. Hephaestus and Aglaia go on to have four children, Eucleia (good repute), Eupheme (acclaim), Euthenia (prosperity), and Philophrosyne (welcome or friendliness), all embodiments similar to Harmonia, who was likewise born out of consensual love. Aglaia’s close association with Aphrodite should also not be overlooked, as an attendant of Aphrodite, the second marriage is likely a show of good favor between the divorced parties, while this is not explicitly stated anywhere (that I have seen yet), the political implications lead me to believe it is a fair assessment.
It is also worth noting that stories that retouch the divorce dismiss Hephaestus’s own consent and desires, especially noticeable in the versions of the marriage where Hephaestus has no say in the arranged marriage either. He is often portrayed as the pitiable, jilted husband, but rarely is his longing for a traditional, reciprocal marriage taken seriously. He wants a wife who chooses him, who shares his values and vision for domestic partnership—something Aphrodite, a goddess of free love and primordial sexuality, is fundamentally not built to provide. Forcing her to stay with him doesn’t just hurt her, it also traps him in a dynamic where he is unloved and, from his perspective, dishonored. In that sense, “fixing” the myth by keeping them together violates not only her autonomy, but his as well.
Divorce with a happy ending is still divorce, and the word scares people. These are stories where two beings who were mismatched—who largely never sought each other to begin with—who are allowed to separate and thrive. And yet, modern retellings refuse to allow this peace. They push Aphrodite back into the mold of the wife, the property, the cheater. They erase the years and years of myth that show her standing beside Ares, her war-god counterpart, her equal in ferocity and desire. And they flatten Aglaia into an afterthought, if they mention her at all, erasing her and her children to make Aphrodite properly subservient. This is where the issue with such a perspective truly becomes noticeable.
Aglaia deserves to be remembered. As do her children, who are in art depicted with a similar grace and respect to the Erotes themselves. They are born of a stable marriage, one that comes after both partners have moved on from a failed union. In a pantheon where female autonomy is so often crushed, Aphrodite and Aglaia both display something radical: that women can choose. That they can remarry. That their love and their families matter even when they do not serve the patriarchal expectations. To ignore Aglaia is not neutral. As with any revision, the change has a purpose. Retellings that claim to “fix” the Aphrodite–Hephaestus–Ares triangle by trapping Aphrodite in a forced loyalty to her first husband do so by quietly deleting the women who make that narrative inconvenient. Aglaia cannot exist if Aphrodite is still bound. Her children cannot exist if Hephaestus is still lovelorn. These retellings sanitize a story of independence and reframe it as betrayal. They strip Aphrodite of agency, Aglaia of identity, and the daughters of dignity. In doing so, they flatten three generations of divine women into props for a redemption arc that was never needed. It rings hollow, similar to modern retellings of the Hymn to Demeter, with a villain-crone Demeter, harming women expressing agency to prop up men has not–and will not–ever be the mark of a feminist re-imagination.
And perhaps that is the root of the issue: the desire to redeem Hephaestus at the expense of every woman around him. It’s not enough for him to be the wronged husband; he must be the only husband, the real husband, the one whose pain justifies rewriting the lives of two goddesses and four daughters. Aphrodite’s freedom becomes a threat. Aglaia’s happiness becomes an obstacle. The stories stop being about them and begin to orbit him, and even then, only the version of him that lives in an unhappy marriage, permanently hovered as a spurned husband. It is rare that ancient myths are progressive, and the desire to “fix” them is largely understandable from a writing perspective, but the issue here is that this myth does not need to be sanitized. They already tell a story more generous, more complex, and far more revolutionary than modern sensibilities often allow: a story where two gods separate and find better partners. A story where two women are allowed to live fully, love freely, and mother divine children without being in competition with one another. Even in modern media, divorce is treated as a horrendous thing, the end of a woman, so why must we erase an ancient example of that being treated as anything other than a death sentence? Why must we reimpart that stigma?
The rise of "fix-it" culture in myth retellings is often framed as a kindness—a way to right perceived wrongs, give neglected characters their due, or resolve the discomfort of divine conflict, oftentimes with the view of women or other minorities in mind. This is not a wholly negative thing, this oftentimes leads to unique approaches on cultural research and new perspectives, but, beneath the surface, these so-called "fixes" often reproduce the very misogyny the authors claim to oppose. This becomes incredibly clear in the mentioned attempts to sanitize the Aphrodite–Hephaestus–Ares dynamic.
Modern retellings frequently paint Hephaestus as a wronged man: the awkward, overlooked husband who was never loved, the good guy passed over for a “bad boy.” And to redeem him, they drag Aphrodite back into his orbit—whether she wants to be there or not. The nerd and the cheerleader, the nice guy gets the girl, and various other tropes that are ill-fitting to either god. They don’t free Hephaestus from a bad marriage; they force Aphrodite to stay in one. They rewrite her choice as a mistake. Her passion for Ares becomes a moral failing. Her marriage becomes a lesson. It’s dressed in the language of empathy, but the outcome is cruel. Aphrodite is not allowed to leave. Not without consequence. Not without judgment. She is a wife. Wives do not get to leave.
And increasingly, this is repackaged in a different modern trope: “I like to see them all as a polyamorous throuple.” On the surface, this feels like a compromise; after all, everyone wins, no one’s heart is broken, and the love triangle becomes a circle. But this interpretation still hinges on erasing Aphrodite’s rejection of Hephaestus. It ignores that the marriage was never mutual. That there was no desire. That Aphrodite left. A poly reinterpretation that keeps Hephaestus as a permanent fixture in her life against all mythic evidence is not progressive; it’s possessive. It insists that Aphrodite must be available to every man who ever claimed her, and that Hephaestus is owed her love, even if she never gave it. An expression of the constant underlying misogyny that controls most heterosexual pairings.
This idea of a compulsory, eternal bond—whether as wife or “partner”—replaces the oppressive marriage with an equally inescapable “enlightened” one. And in doing so, it erases Aglaia all over again. There is no room for her in a Hephaestus who never moved on. There is no room for her daughters. The same old story of the spurned husband is told again, dressed up in progressive language, but still feeding the same old narrative: that women who leave are wrong, and that men who suffer deserve their return. Taming of the shrew. Domesticating the bitch. Whore to wife.
These retellings are decidedly not feminist. They are not generous. They are not even inventive. They are rigid in their morality and unimaginative in their vision. They ignore the actual myths, which somehow promote more progressive messaging: That gods can separate without war, that women can remarry without shame, and that men can heal without conquest. And that none of this erases the worth of the people and families who come after. Aphrodite does not need to be “fixed” or made “tame.” Neither does Hephaestus. What does needs fixing is the instinct to bind women to their forced roles and call that stillness peace.
At its core, the myth of Aphrodite, Ares, and Hephaestus is not “wrong” or a broken relic to be updated. It is one of the few places in ancient mythology where a woman not only leaves a marriage but is allowed to love again, freely and without punishment from the gods themselves. And yet, time and again, modern storytellers refuse to let her go. They bend the myth to fit a morality that values male pain over female autonomy, that punishes choice with shame. It is a boring, tired, and overdone trope of misogyny that refuses to be reflected upon in any meaningful way. To insist Aphrodite belongs to Hephaestus—whether through jealousy, punishment, or polyamory she never asked for—is to deny what the myth actually shows: that she didn’t stay. That he didn’t either! That their story ended, and new ones began. Aphrodite’s love for Ares is not a failure of her duty. Aglaia’s love for Hephaestus is not a footnote to be ignored. Both are evidence of women who were allowed, for once, to choose.
Fix-it culture, with all its intentions, still too often centers men: their feelings, their imagined losses, their entitlement to women’s affection. But myth is not meant to coddle us. It is meant to reveal us. And what it reveals here is a truth still radical in many spaces, ancient or modern: that women’s choices—especially when they leave, when they love again, when they thrive—do not require justification. Aphrodite is not a disobedient wife, she is not an affair gone wrong.
The myth did not end at the golden net.
Lines and sources discussed include: Homer–Odyssey, Quintus Smyrnaeus–Fall of Troy, Various interpreters–Francois Vase, Pausanias–Descriptions of Greece,