The theme for this unit is obvious, is it not?  The good guys must win.  If the bad guys win, civilization is doomed.  The world will be given to vicious children.  So our theme is righteousness.

Oedipus Again:The suitors say they wish to marry PEN.  This is not very plausible.  OD has been absent for 20 years.  PEN must be 40 years old; most of the suitors are in their early 20s.  Antinoos must be only slightly older than TEL.  He says he remembers OD "from childhood."  OD was a foster father to Antinoos.  Eurymakhos sleeps with Melanthio, whom PEN   adopted as a daughter:
18.361    taken as ward in childhood by PEN
               . . . [who] raised her as her own.
It is clear that Homer renders the suitors as spoiled children.  The generational age difference between the suitors & PEN/OD suggests that the Oedipal complex is again at work.  These young men do not wish to marry PEN as much as to prove that they are adults, that they are the men as powerful as OD.  Eurymakhos' quick response to PEN/mom reveals their anxiety:
21.336    We hear some jackal whispering:
             "How far inferior to the great husband
             her suitors are!"

Slightly earlier, Eurymakhos had confessed:
21.260    the worst
              is humiliation--to be shown up for children
              measured against OD . . . .
              What shame to be repeated of us . . . !

The suitors represent a stage of human growth & development that precedes the world of The Iliad.  They are mamma's boys, which is to say that they expect their mothers to intercede for them to prevent trouble.  Remember AK rejecting his mother's intercession?
18.147    though you love me; you cannot make me listen
AK dares to be a man, which -- among other things -- means that he faces death.  Not one of the suitors has such maturity & consequently none of them is ready to be a man.  These boys see violence as a kind of funny accident, like laughing at a toddler who falls down because he has not yet mastered the balance involved in walking.  Those grim scenes of atrocity in The Iliad present a terror & depth that these children could only giggle at.  These boys need their mammas, not wives.  Only a survivor of the The Iliad -- a man who has felt power -- is ready for a wife & children.  Who comes, too late, to rescue the delinquent boys?  Their fathers.  Even here we see a slight joke on this theme, when Laertes (not OD) slays Eupeithes (the father of Antinoos), who is OD's age -- i.e., the age of his son.

Eurykleia Recognizes Odysseus

Marriage:We know that PEN (like Arete, Nausikaa, Ino, & Athena herself) is committed to civil values:
19.367    The hard man & his cruelties will be
              cursed behind his back, & mocked in death.
              But one whose heart & ways are kind--of him
              strangers will bear report to the wide world,
              & distant men will praise him.

How well does this work out in the absence of power (OD)?  The vicious children (suitors) mock such weakness.  They plan murder, that they never have the daring or power to commit, while they charm the victim's mother!  Brutal power that destroys even itself is less repugnant than this.  At least it is clean & forthright.  In contrast, when the world is given to mothers they produce the pathology illustrated by Eurymakhos & Melanthios.  Neither power is complete.  Each needs the other.  When PEN seems to spurn the altar of the marriage bed (by instructing Eurykleia to remove it from her bedroom), OD grows angry.  PEN says:
23.211    Do not rage at me, OD!
              No one [but me] ever matched your caution!
23.220    Helen of Argos, daughter of Zeus & Lead,
              would she have joined the stranger [Paris], lain with him,
              if she had known her destiny?

PEN suggests that she is just as committed to the culture of the mind as OD.  They are married (or fellow citizens) because they are both committed to the same vision; they have the same hopes & concerns that make them allies & comrades, instead of potential adversaries in the war of the sexes.  Children, such as the suitors (or Paris & Helen), are not mature enough to have commitments to anything but their immediate emotions. The marriage image is present in the form of a paradox that the Greeks trusted was closer to reality (cf. Chinese yin/yang) than some arbitrary & unstable fiat:
24.568    Both parties later swore to terms of peace
              set by their arbiter, Athena, daughter
              of Zeus . . .
              though still she kept the form & voice of Mentor.

Athena is obviously female, the daughter of Zeus.  But she is also male, with the form & voice of Mentor.  She is also a child, the daughter of Zeus.  She is the family.  She is the city.  The virginal wife of power, she is the mother of civilization.

Click on the next section: Background above.