What is this fascination with Martha Stewart? Her current woes have caught the public interest in a way that far exceeds the magnitude of her crime. Compared to the savings and loan scandal of the late 20th century, and the Enron disaster, both of which beggared many and injured more, Stewart's peccadilloes seem pretty run of the mill. Author and social commentator David Brooks spoke on PBS's NewsHour the June before her conviction, summing up the more outstanding news events of the previous week. One of the highlights of the day's broadcast was Martha's then-recent indictment and arraignment on charges of lying about possible insider trading. Brooks compared the public's attacks on Martha Stewart to those launched at former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and was amazed at the level to which they could both be "demonized." He concluded by stating "The hatred of her is so over the top that it's become sickening. . . Tell the mob to ease up. It's just become too brutal."
On the other hand, financial journalist Christopher Byron, author of Martha, Inc.: The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Omnimedia, presented as a docu-drama on NBC, views the vituperative treatment of America's domestic icon as "perfectly fair." During Byron's guest appearance on NPR's "Motley Fools" financial investment program, the week of her indictment, he stated "Never saw a story like this before. This is the Queen of the American kitchen, being taken downtown, fingerprinted, told to look at the camera, look sideways, and released on a recognizance bond for white-collar crime on Wall Street. She is now the official poster gal of the CEO crime wave of the 1990's. It's amazing."
Hyperbole aside, Byron's stance reflects the attitude of many who view Stewart's current predicament as the natural outcome of her hubristic behavior. According to many people who have worked with her, Martha Stewart can be obsessively demanding of perfection, reluctant to share credit for the work done for her organization by others, and seems to place ambition before emotional attachment to family or friends. These are not qualities exclusive to her. They may be found in the character make-up of many successful business people. The aspect of Martha Stewart's business career that makes her situation unique is the venue in which she chose to succeed--the home--and the use of her own house(s), family, and friends to animate many of the projects upon which she built her empire. Martha invited her viewers and readers into her private world from the outset. Conscious or not, this choice gave her, and her life, the appearance of public property.
Some contemporary sociologists have said of Martha that she is filling a need for female mentorship in the sphere of home and family; that she is teaching us the domestic expertise that, in earlier generations, would have been passed on by a grandmother or mother. Stewart's magazine, books, and television programs, in an authoritative yet chattily personal way, educate her readers and viewers on how to judge and create works of quality. She is the doyenne of good taste and style, that upper-crust New England, old-family style that, until very recent times, served as an indicator of wealth, education, and status. And perhaps it is now a phantom of a style that no longer exists in the real, postmodern world of blended social strata. Just as the robber-baron millionaires in the late 19th century could build pseudo-European mansions in Newport and on Park Avenue, and stock them with garish marble gee-gaws, so can the winners in yesterday's instant-wealth technology and marketing sectors recreate their own versions of Darien or Kennebunkport via faux antiques and collectibles from The Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and (not incidentally) Martha-By-Mail. Not only has Martha been selling "her own childhood dream of adulthood," as Christopher Byron claims; she has also been selling her followers the fantasy of creating that perfect world for themselves and their families. And in this she placed herself firmly in the reign of Hestia, eldest sister of the Greek gods and goddesses who have had a profound influence on the symbolic systems of Western society.
Hestia is found at the very heart of the domestic environment. She is the only Greek goddess who is not represented in human form: she manifests as the flame on the hearth, rising straight up from the earthen floor towards the smoke hole in the ceiling. She is complete in herself, outside of relationship. Her power does not come from a partner. Hestia remains virgin at her own request and by fiat of Zeus. Her sole focus is on the stability of the household and the well-being of the family. She is not defined through the role as wife or daughter, but as senior sister who has dedicated herself to maintaining the integrity of the home.
Every Greek town and city once had a communal hearth at its center, over which Hestia held sway. These were the sites where vows were made and contracts forged. She was implacable and unbending. To swear by Hestia was the ultimate oath, and woe betide anyone who broke that contract. In later times, when the Romans had adapted the Greek religion, Hestia was transformed into Vesta, the goddess whose fires were maintained by women dedicated to a life of chastity and duty. If a Vestal virgin defiled her office by taking a lover, both she and her lover could be buried alive as punishment.
The Greek god Hermes, on the other hand, is often viewed as the opposite, and to a large degree, the complement, of Hestia. His world begins at the external side of the threshold, while hers ends on the interior side. He is all about interaction and negotiation, conveying information from one person or deity to another. One of the jobs of Hermes is the transportation of souls over the threshold between life and death. He is the messenger of the gods, but also a trickster, eternally slippery and (like the element Mercury that bears his Roman name) incapable of being fixed, as he slips from one shape to the next, depending on the context or container of the moment. Hermes is the god of commerce, of communication, but also the god of thieves; not of violent theft such as mugging or assault, but theft through trickery, through duplicity of intent and manipulation of honor--the kind of theft that a clever person might talk his or her way out of. As such, Hermes may be seen as the patron god of white collar crime.
The Greeks understood that the domains of Hestia and Hermes could never be conflated; the attributes of one present a liability in the world of the other. Hestia's language is the absolute legalese of a contractual agreement, all loopholes revealed and stitched tightly closed, while Hermes speaks in the dialect of expediency. There is a very good reason that the reach of Hestia's world ends at the inside of the threshold: her implacability may not always be an asset in the wider world of interaction. In the home, a family shares a history, complete with understandings, expectations, and codes of behavior. A family member who shape-shifts unexpectedly according to the situation may be a success in financial endeavors, but within the confines of the home will create chaos and instability. In the external arena, particularly that of the marketplace where representatives from many backgrounds meet and do business, a much broader and more flexible stance is necessary for successful dealing. Sometimes salesmanship involves a little glossing of the truth or restructuring of reality. This is where the acolyte of Hermes has a significant edge. And it was into this field that Martha Stewart wandered when, probably casually, she responded to a call from her broker and set into motion a chain of events that may dissolve her hard-won empire. While Stewart upheld the integrity of her contracts and her behavior, she remained under the approving gaze of Hestia. Break that code of ethics, however, and trespass into the world of Hermes, where everything has at least two meanings, then disaffiliation with the goddess of home and hearth becomes inevitable.
People can, have, and will psychoanalyze Martha Stewart until the color-coordinated cows come home. They can unravel, yet again, the now-threadbare patches of her life to better understand her motives. But the gods of the Greeks will give you the clearest answer: it is dangerous to mix the worlds of Hestia and Hermes with impunity. As the straying Vestal virgins discovered, such action comes at a very dear price.