293). Odysseus prays to her as he would a god, and she is a mortal, possessing no god-like powers. Nausicaa is a young woman who wants a husband. When Homer first introduces this character, she seems to be nave and young, but proves that first impressions can be deceiving. .
The women in The Odyssey are never presented as individuals, but as dependents. Their social status, reputation, and lives depend on the men. Even the dead women Odysseus meets in "the cold homes of death" (Homer p.326), are only known because they were the lovers of gods, and bore their children. "And next I saw Amphitrion's true wife, Alkmene, mother, as all men know, of lionish Heracles, conceived when she lay close in Zeus's arms; and Megare, high-hearted Kreons's daughter, wife of Amphitrion's unweary son" (Homer p.333). Most of the descriptions given to the many women that Odysseus sees in the land of the dead merely describe their great beauty, the gods that conceived their children, and the greatness of these children. "Unlike men in the Homeric world, women have no public role or duty. When there is no man available or they are extraordinary figures (goddesses) in their own right - Arete, Penelope, Helen, Circe, and Calypso - do they act as a host. Perhaps the only public role of women comes when it is time to lament the death of a hero" (Higbie p.111).
In The Odyssey, women do not have jurisdiction over their own lives. Some examples of this include an arranged marriage: when Menelaus is having a wedding feast for his daughter, whom he had pledged to the heir of great Alkhilleus, and the ultimatum issued by the suitors to Telemachus. "Dismiss your mother from the house, or make her marry the man her father names and she prefers" (Homer p.209). Menelaos's daughter has no choice as to who she will marry, and Penelope's son has the ability to make his mother leave the house. It is here that we find out how inferior mortal women are in Greek society.