Pandora's Cake

Authors

Mark R. Killenbeck, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Keywords

Supreme Court precedents, religion-based exemptions, public accommodation laws, Free Exercise Clause, First Amendment, Constitutional Law, religious free speech, service refusal

Abstract

Most of us are familiar with the spectre of Pandora's Box, the "present which seems valuable, but which in reality is a curse."' Robert Graves described Pandora as "the most beautiful [woman] ever created.",2 She was sent by Zeus as a gift to Epimetheus, who initially "respectfully" declined to marry her.3 But chastened by the fate of his brother Prometheus, he changed his mind and wed a women who was "as foolish, mischievous, and idle as she was beautiful.",4 She opened a jar that she and her husband had been "warned. .. to keep closed in which"5 Prometheus had "imprison[ed in it] all the Spites that might plague mankind: such as Old Age, Labour, Sickness, Insanity, Vice, and Passion. Out these flew in a cloud, stung Epimetheus and Pandora in every part of their bodies, and then attacked the race of mortals." 6

Recommended Citation

Mark R. Killenbeck, Pandora's Cake, 72 Ark. L. Rev. 769 (2020).
Available at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr/vol72/iss4/2