Theogony presents Pandora as the source of women’s “race and tribe.”
The poem, attributed to Hesiod, describes the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods. In its account of Pandora, Zeus creates a beautiful woman as punishment for Prometheus’s theft of fire. The passage then connects her creation with the hardships associated with marriage and household life in Hesiod’s worldview.
Works and Days contains a longer narrative about Pandora and the jar, but Theogony is the poem that uses the language about the origin of women as a collective group. The two works are related yet not identical, which is why details can differ between summaries of the myth.
Modern readers should treat Hesiod’s description as an ancient cultural perspective, not as a historical explanation of human origins. The myth reflects gender assumptions and social concerns in archaic Greece. Later writers and artists frequently softened, challenged, or reinterpreted those elements.