Sophocles, Hegel and Ibsen

A Perspective on A Doll’s House, Ghosts and An Enemy of the People
by Helge Salemonsen

V. The Human and the Divine Law; Man and Woman

      The sixth chapter of the Phenomenology is divided into a sequence of subsections that have their own headlines. The first three are connected to the history of Greek-Roman antiquity. In the following paragraphs . I will briefly present what they describe while giving reasons why Ibsen’s three sequent plays – A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the People (1882) – might have something to do with each of these first three subsections.

      Hegel’s starting point is a type of society before the constitutional state, a custom-based society, without written laws, regulated through a system of rules, commands, obligations, taboos – an ethos – mediated through the line of generations.   It is a code system that each member of society identifies with spontaneously, that is, not through reflection or contemplation, but unreflectively absorbed as the sacrosanct, god-given order of life. The individual is socialised into this custom-based order through the family. The family recruits players of society, prepares the youth to take part in the polis, join in warfare and fulfil the duties of society; while society’s power, usually personified by a king, is in organising the whole, protecting the family, guarding and preparing for the order of society.

      A potential conflict is latently present in this mutuality between the family and the public society of citizens and king, that sooner or later must be brought to the surface. Before we take a closer look at this, we will note the title of the first subsection:

a. The ethical world; Human and Divine Law; Man and Woman. A factual, tradition-based relationship between the sexes underlies this potential source of conflict, as described by Hegel. He uses Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone as an illustrative model.

      Within this custom-based order there is a certain division of labour: woman takes care of the oikos (the household)nd administrates the family’s daily life; while man works for the polis – the extended society of citizens – takes part in production, in the exchanging of goods, in citizen counsels, in duties of warfare and peace. This division of labour has consequences also for the more specific systems of norms, that connect themselves distinctively either to oikos or to polis – i.e. to the family (woman’s domain) or to the public society (man’s domain).

      The family is the core of society. It is the family that communicates the community’s norms and customs from generation to generation, as if they followed the bloodline. That is why burial rites are so important in ancient societies. If the dead is injured (dishonored), this will have consequences not only for the family but for the life and destiny of the community as a whole. The dead and the keepers of the dead, the gods of the underworld will take revenge.

      This specific ethos, the set of customs and norms that tie themselves specifically to the family, to the living and the dead, has traditionally and preferably been woman’s responsibility. This means it was also her responsibility to ensure that a deceased relative received what was his due: a proper burial, prayers, blessings, regular grave offerings. The Divine Law is Hegel’s definition of this ethos, while the ruling system that has been traditionally a male domain, the law of the fellowship, is defined as The Human Law. Hegel’s point is that these two aspects or normative systems, though being dependent on each other, sooner or later in certain situations must come into conflict with each other.

      In Antigone it is King Creon who enforces The Human Law (the law of society, the law of man). He postulates a decree: Antigone’s recently slain brother, Polynices, was to be denied a funeral. The one who broke this injunction was to be punished by death. It is important to notice that this was not a random decision on Creon’s behalf. It was consistent with the customary code of the times. Polynices has allied himself with the enemies of Thebes, and made a plot against his own polis. He had violated and betrayed the people who had raised him.

     To let the dead lay uncovered as prey for wild beasts and scavengers was a punishment traditionally subscribed for one who had betrayed his people. Polynices was not only guilty of betrayal; through this betrayal he had committed a sacrilege. For this reason, Creon was obligated to act as he did. Simply to trace this decision back to the king’s despotic whim, wrath and personal need for revenge, would be to oversimplify the problem. Creon did not only feel justified; he felt obligated.

      Antigone on her side was obligated by the ethos that was related to the family. Of course, Antigone’s love for her brother is a part of this picture, as also with Creon’s wrath. But this love and this wrath takes shape and is given direction by the normative codes that rule this world. As a woman, as a sister, Antigone is obligated to bury her brother, something she alsohe king’s injunction, or The Human Law. Creon executes with full right The Human Law, but through this he violates The Divine Law. If Antigone on the other hand had submitted to Creon’s decree, then she would have made herself guilty according to The Divine Law. If Creon had acknowledged Antigone’s right to bury her brother, he would have violated the norms which stated how betrayal is to be dealt with; and thus he would have made himself guilty according to The Human Law. This means they are both doomed to guilt, whatever they do, whatever they avoid to do. Both are being reproached: Antigone by the chorus leader, the spokesman of the people, Creon by the soothsayer Tiresias, he who has insight into The Divine Law:

Chorus (to Antigone):
The respect you showed [to Polynices] is a noble kind of respect, but power in the hands of him to whom it belongs [Creon] is in no way to be flouted. And you were destroyed by your self-willed passion. (Sophocles 1994: 872-875)

Tiresias (to Creon):
On account of this the Erinys of Hades and the gods lie in wait for you, doer of outrage, so that you will be caught up in the same evils. (Sophocles 1994: 1074-1076)