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On Zeus and Hera: divine conflict
When one consults the lore about Zeus and Hera, they may notice a pretty consistent pattern in their relationship: that is, the terrifying and constructive nature of their conflicts and disputes with each other, where a frustrated Zeus matches his brains with an equally frustrated Hera. This may lead some people to think that they don’t love each other, while this is simply not the case, which is why I’m writing this rant about the nature of the two head gods of the Olympian pantheon’s conflict with each other, and the ways in which it is significant in maintaining the balance of the universe.
First of all, Zeus and Hera are siblings. Siblings bicker and fight all the time, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. In fact, the love of Zeus and Hera is recounted in multiple bits of poetry, and their wedding famously lasted 300 years. The myth of the founding of the Daidala festival reinforces this notion of deep love and respect that the two gods have for each other, especially the one that Zeus has for Hera, his wedded wife and definitive partner.
Next up, the conflict between the two of them is a reminder of the equal nature of their marriage, as Zeus never argues with any other deity than Hera, nor does she argue with anyone other than her husband, with both allowing their points and desires to be heard and understood by the other. In the Iliad for example, Hera is the only goddess with whom Zeus shares his plans for the fate of Troy, to which she responds with her own plans to bring glory to the Acheans before all of it comes to pass, making the divine couple agree on the following course of events that will lead to the fall of Troy. This shows that this divine conflict, so often misinterpreted as divisive, serves as a means of determining the way in which the fate of the universe will be carried out.
Like Eve in the bible who was cursed with a mind contrary to her husband, Hera has a will opposed to that of Zeus, which serves as a challenge to him and a reinforcement of his diplomatic power, a good quality for a king to have, which ultimately leads to the solidification of his reign as supreme, since he is able to not only marry his way back into Olympus through Hera (she is a symbol of legitimacy after all), but also reconcile his will with that of a contrary goddess such as Hera, thereby making him seem wiser and peaceful in the eyes of the gods, to whom he is a father and a sibling.
Moreover, Zeus even appreciates, or at least accepts the fact that Hera is constantly bickering with him, as seen in the Iliad, when he sends Iris to scold Athena for being against his will while letting Hera walk away without consequence, even specifying that her character opposes his. Another example is in one version of the story of Tiresias, where the divine couple argued about who gets the most pleasure during sex and call Tiresias to give his opinion on the matter, having been man and woman at multiple points of his life.
Hera and Zeus argue all the time, but the Eris (discord/strife) omnipresent in their relationship is not the destructive, war-creating Eris that we all know and love (Hesiod identified two Erises), but the one that makes rivals compete, the one that makes opponents fight, and the one that makes siblings quarrel. As such, it is no coincidence that she is sometimes the daughter of the divine couple, and that her presence leads to constructive forms of conflict that facilitate the reconciliation of two opposing sides, making her a force of peace instead of lasting hatred that one thinks of when they hear the word “discord”.