Excerpt from Term Paper:

...... A good example of this from the Odyssey is how Penelope, the wife of
Odysseus, treats
her numerous suitors for her hand in marriage despite not knowing for
certain that Odysseus is

dead or has been taken captive by his Trojan enemies following the Trojan
War, described by
Homer in his Iliad. Thus, Penelope's excellence as a high-ranking Greek
woman required her to maintain her household and property during her
husband's long absence and was obliged to show great stamina in resisting
the demands of her many suitors, most of whom were living in the home of
Odysseus as very unwanted guests
Odysseus himself who returns to Ithaca in triumph after twenty years
of wandering, is clearly a man with unsurpassed virtues and achievements
which shows that the society of Greece after the "Dark Age" expected a
great deal from its men and women which entitled them to a certain level of
social recognition for their adherence to excellence and virtue or social
disgrace for their personal failings. Thus, under the conditions set forth
by these codes and values, any other type of life was seen as contemptible
if its central goal was not the pursuit of excellence and

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