What the average viewer can easily understand is that the conflict between Medea and Jason essentially expresses the archetypal opposition between male and female. On one hand, Medea defends the sacred institution of marriage, validated by vows of eternal faithfulness, and on the other hand, the traitor Jason, who appears calculating, self-interested, utilitarian, but also rational, as he lost his kingdom and with his new marriage hopes to gain a new throne and kingdom.

He seizes the opportunity to rebuild his life, to have a second chance, indifferent to the pain he causes to the woman to whom he owes the first and heroic part of his life. The success of the Argonautic Expedition was almost entirely the work of Medea. Even his ascent to the throne of Iolcus. Jason's cold choice epitomizes ingratitude.

And Medea certainly does not merely defend marriage as a social institution. Beyond her rejection as a woman – and we understand what a torturous wound such a rejection constitutes – she also contemplates the nonexistent future that awaits her.

What remains from Medea and all of Euripides' work is a world of people with flaws, passions, weaknesses, dark sides, and uncontrollable inner forces, leading to tragic and dead-end events. Euripides presents himself through his work as the most earthy, the most realistic, and the closest to the contradictory nature of the human being.

With understanding, however, with sympathy, and perhaps with leniency for the imperfect and weak nature of humanity. He was the quintessential scholar of human nature and relationships among people, and this deep and honest study permeates his entire body of work.