Pandora’s Box

You can tell with certainty that men, not women, wrote most of the early mythology concerning the creation of the world and the beginning of mankind. You can tell it because of the recurring theme of women getting us into all kinds of trouble. For example, in Greek mythology there is Pandora, the first woman. There are many versions of the Pandora story, but according to one of the most common ones, Prometheus stole fire from heaven and brought it down to us mortal men. Whereupon, the chief god, Zeus, was so angry that he created women as a punishment. The other gods decided to cooperate and they provided certain gifts for this first woman, Pandora. Aphrodite gave her beauty, Hermes gave her cunning, and other gods contributed, until finally it came the turn of Zeus himself. He gave her a box — Pandora’s Box — in which he had placed all of the blessings he intended mankind to have. He instructed Pandora to deliver…