Biographical+information

Hera was the Olympian queen of the gods and the goddess of women and marriage. She was also a goddess of the sky and starry heavens. She was usually depicted as a beautiful woman wearing a crown and holding a royal, lotus-tipped staff. Sometimes she held a royal lion or had a cuckoo or hawk as her familiar. Hera was one of the 12 Olympian Gods of Classical Mythology. Hera was the youngest daughter of the youngest daughter of [|Gaia] and inherited her garden. She was the third daughter of [|Rhea] and Cronos, called the "gold-shod Hera". Hera was most known for her marriage to Zeus, and from her marriage with him were born three children: [|Hebe] (the Goddess of Youth), [|Eileithyia] (the Goddess of Childbirth), and [|Ares] (the God of War). During their marriage she got angry at Zeus for his apparent parthenogenetic bearing of [|Athena] and responded by bearing [|Hephaestus] without the help of a man. She was his third wife, and made no effort to persecute any of the wives or children of previous marriages of Zeus. Hera was the jealous protectress of marriage. Ironically, there's nothing said about an actual wedding, rather the story goes that Zeus turned himself into a cuckoo (which is a notoriously randy bird in Ancient Greece), and when she put the little bird to her breast, he took advantage. Hera was the perfect patriarchal image of what marriage was. She wasn't very nice, not to anyone, including her children, and she destroyed anyone who Zeus even looked at.She also went after the children of Zeus' ilicit affairs. Hera disliked every woman Zeus had an affair with.

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