Writer's Thoughts: Should Electra Complex Be Changed?

           We all know the story of Oedipus. Kills his father and marries his mother. Eventually Sigmund Freud uses this as an example of a son's desire to kill his own father and take his place to love the mother. Though it seems unfair given that Oedipus actually tried to avoid that prophecy believing his adopted parents to be his real parents. That misunderstanding aside, the female equivalent to the Oedipus Complex is the Electra Complex, which is the daughter wanting to kill the mother to replace her and marry her father. Both complexes speak of a love/hate relationship between parent and child. Both have an obsession with fathers. But I feel like the Electra story doesn't fit the Oedipus story (in more ways than one).

    First let's talk about who Electra was. Electra was the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. Agamemnon was about to go off to war (the Trojan War) but decided to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis for a favorable wind (instead it's revealed that Artemis just took Iphigenia to an island making her a priestess of her temple). When Clytemnestra heard of this she vowed revenge (because the Greeks love a good revenge plot instead of a more sane option though to be fair, they didn't have the concept of divorce). Clytemnestra took a young lover and they plotted against her husband. When Agamemnon came home, Clytemnestra murdered her husband in a bath. Afterwards fearing retribution against Agamemnon's living children, Clytemnestra's lover has Electra married to a poor old man and banishes her brother. Electra and her brother plot revenge, killing their mother and her lover.

    At best the story of Electra is more of a resentment against her mother for letting her boyfriend treat her so badly than a daughter swearing vengeance because her mother killed her father. If Agamemnon sacrificed his own child for a change in the weather he might not have been such a great dad to begin with so I doubt his remaining children would have shed a tear at his funeral. Which brings me to what this complex should be called: Ever hear the story of Myrrha?

This is more Adonis with Aphrodite

    The story of Myrrha and Cinyras is not well known but it still shows up in Greek/Roman Mythology as Myrrha is the mother of Adonis, Aphrodite and Persephone's lover. Myrrha was the daughter of King Cinyras, King of Cyprus, and his queen Cenchreis. One detail I remember is that Aphrodite heard Myrrha say she would never fall in love which pisses the goddess off (not exactly sure why but the Greek Gods are a vindictive bunch). Or I could be wrong about that and it's just Myrrha falling in love with her father out of the blue. To Cinyras's credit he allows his daughter to pick a suitor but she weeps saying that her mother is the luckiest woman to have found such a husband in her father. 

     Cinyras misinterprets this as an innocent idealized love of a daughter for her father. Bring in the nurse who finally gets Myrrha to confess that she desires her father. Instead of advising her against it, Myrrha's nurse helps her achieve her desire. Best to get dear old dad drunk first and make sure it was really dark. The nurse had told the king that he had an admirer but she was shy and asked to visit him in the darkness during a festival. For a few nights Cinyras unknowingly had incestuous sex with his daughter until his curiosity got the better of him and he held a light up to his mystery lover's face. Understandably Cinyras is shocked and appalled that he had been sleeping with his daughter. He chased her out of his bed and his palace. Myrrha is pregnant and prays that her suffering would end but be spared death. So she's turned into a tree. From her split trunk comes a beautiful baby boy, Adonis.

    It's fair to say that Myrrha is a much more accurate portrayal like that of the Oedipus story though the only difference is that Myrrha knew exactly who she was sleeping with. We don't know how Myrrha's mother felt but it's safe to say that Cinyras probably didn't say anything. Now we all don't really want to sleep with our parents. The object of the Oedipus/Electra/Myrrha complexes is to show our desire to become them or to reject them; it details a complicated love/hate relationship we have with our parents who are either good or mean to us for whatever reason. As someone who has a toxic mother and so very close with her father I can say I'm more like Electra (though if you ask my mother she'll say I'm my father's girlfriend in which case in her mind I'm Myrrha). My mother is crazy but I am more my father's daughter than my mother's. Getting back on track I'm ok with us calling it the Electra/Myrrha complex as it embodies the whole Oedipus complex combining desire and violence against one's parent.