ABSTRACT
This chapter is an effort to bridge the gap between life cycle views of androgyny, as seen in the work of Jung, Gutmann, and others, and trait views of androgyny, as found in the work of Sandra Bern and others. Yet The Bacchae is universally acclaimed as "the most perfect" of all the tragedies of Euripides, the crown of his old age. The social psychologists who argue the case for the adaptive value of androgyny as a trait would dispute the life cycle model of androgyny suggested by Gutmann-and so, if the author read him correctly, would Euripides. The implicit dissent suggested in this chapter between social psychological trait models of androgyny and the life cycle model, in which androgyny emerges in later life, is partially reconciled by the proposal that it is sexual anxieties and the fear of androgyny—specifically, the fear of the woman within the man—which are developmentally paced.
