She is the patroness and protector of marriage and family. No Greek wedding was complete without sacrifices and prayers to Hera. Naturally, women in Ancient Greece tended to be drawn to worshiping her, because she understood their woes.
Zeus was the poster child for infidelity. Hardly a Greek myth begins any other way besides, "So Zeus had a kid with this one mortal lady..." (generally in more poetic wording). Now, as I mentioned last week, he and Hera loved each other once, and it's hard to speculate the chicken-or-egg question: Did Hera become a nagging jealous wife because of her husband's behavior, or did Zeus start to cheat because his wife was nagging and suspicious? I guess either way the behavior of both parties perpetuated the cycle. Because Zeus cheated, Hera became angry. Because of Hera's anger, Zeus felt pushed away and turned to other women. Thus, it never ends.
That being said, Hera was legendary for her revenge plots. The problem is, she took out all her anger on the mortal women and demigod children instead of on her faithless husband--partially because he's the king of the gods and you don't want to mess with that, even when you're his wife. For instance, like I mentioned weeks ago, she tricked Semele into causing her own demise, and very nearly killed her unborn child, Dionysus. In some versions of the story, she later gave baby Dionysus some toys to play with that were actually magic artifacts that summoned the wrath of the titans--the infant wine god barely escaped with his life, thanks to his father.
Perhaps her most famous quest for vengeance, however, was against the hero Heracles (who for some reason is better known by his Roman name, Hercules. I guess it sounds cooler). She put a myriad of deadly obstacles in his path, both in his childhood and his adulthood, but he conquered them all.
It wasn't just demigod children that she punished. When Zeus commissioned a young nymph, Echo, to distract Hera (by incessant talking) from his latest exploit, Hera eventually saw through the plot and became enraged (surprise, surprise). She punished Echo by making her unable to speak, except to repeat other people's words. Sometimes, even to this day, you can hear Echo repeating you!
While you may or may not agree with this punishment, Echo suffered greatly for it. She tried desperately to win the love of Narcissus, a beatiful but outrageously arrogant young man, who rejected her very callously. Aphrodite was indignant at his cruelty and punished him by making him fall desperately in love with his own reflection (hence, from his name we get the English word "narcissistic," meaning utterly self-absorbed). Narcissus was so desperate to be with his own reflection that he dove into the river and drowned.
So obviously, Hera indirectly caused a great deal of grief. Besides being jealous and suspicious, quick-tempered like so many other members of her family, and very proud, she was in constant rivalry with Aphrodite and Athena. She, like Athena, was a chaste goddess (in her case, this meant being completely faithful to her undeserving husband, like a perfect Greek wife)--but she, like Aphrodite, was beautiful and alluring. One day, the three goddesses got into a heated argument about who was the most beautiful, and it ended up causing the Trojan War (more to come on that later).
But was she wholly bad? Of course not. I don't hate Hera, and I don't hate her husband, even though their actions sometimes frustrate or exasperate me. We cannot ignore that fact that she was compassionate and strong, that she looked after the mortals who pleased her. Yes, she held grudges pretty fiercely. Yes, she was proud--the peacock is her symbol because of this--but I believe that stemmed from deep-seated insecurity. After all, if she was so beautiful and so kind, why wasn't she enough for her husband? She had given him two (or three) children and stood by his side through all adversity. Why did he need anyone else? I think that probably hurt her a great deal. I think Hera gets a bad reputation partially from the long tradition of unfaithful husbands in the ancient world, who resented Hera for cramping her husband's style. But seriously...is it unfair of her to expect him to change his ways now that he's married? If the wife were the unfaithful one, and the husband the jealous one, would we be reacting differently? Double. Standard.
And while you can argue about whether her reaction was proportional to the crime or not, I can't help but feel sorry for her. Anyone who has loved someone and felt alone in love knows the pain she suffers every day. Being in love and feeling like you're the only one is very lonely indeed. Also, I think it wounds her pride to have everyone in Olympus gossip about her philandering husband, and it's hard for her to hold her head up and keep her dignity when everybody knows the intimate details of her messy marriage.
Hera was a pretty strong character, too. There were times that she stood up to Zeus when it was important enough. For instance, when the gods, angry at Zeus's slump in leadership skills, decided to rebel and trap Zeus in his throne, Hera was the driving force behind the plot. She and Poseidon made their brother swear to be a more responsible leader before letting him out of the chair.
p.s. Did you know that the peacock has that curious pattern in its tail because Hera placed eyes in its feathers, to keep a lookout on Zeus? Also, Hera created Argus, a man literally covered in eyes, for the same purpose. (It is from this myth that J.K Rowling gets the name for Hogwarts' caretaker, Argus Filch!)
p.p.s. Hera still has plenty of influence in modern-day US, even among the non-Greek/pagan population. Her Roman name is Juno--remember that movie of the same name that came out a few years back with Ellen Page, about the teenage mom? Yeah, she's named after the patroness of motherhood for good reason. And it is still a tradition for weddings to happen in June, more than any other month--the month dedicated to Juno!
