Why is Zeus married to his sister? To hide her shame,
After courting her unsuccessfully he changed himself into a disheveled cuckoo. When Hera took pity on the bird and held it to her breast, Zeus resumed his true form and ravished her. Hera then decided to marry him to cover her shame, and the two had a resplendent wedding worthy of the gods.
Gods, for the ancient Greeks, had a very liberal attitude in life. Family unions were not applicable to them, that is why brothers could marry their sisters and have children or a son could kill his parents. How much liberal rules were for the gods, this would not apply for mortals.
After Leto, Zeus found a lover who put him in seventh heaven. For this lover, his seventh, was the one he chose to marry: his sister Hera. When he began courting her—in secret, so that his mother would not find out—Hera, who no doubt knew that Zeus had already had six different lovers, spurned his romantic overtures.
Zeus then married the Oceanid Eurynome, who bore the three Charites (Graces). Zeus's fourth wife was his sister, Demeter, who bore Persephone. The fifth wife of Zeus was his aunt, the Titan Mnemosyne, whom he seduced in the form of a mortal shepherd.
Perhaps partly because of the strange circumstances of her birth, Athena is often cited as Zeus's favourite child. He also greatly admired her strength of character and fighting spirit. Some believe Athena was Zeus's first born child, which might, somewhat unfairly, suggest why he chose her as his favourite.
Zeus fell in love with Io and seduced her. To try to keep Hera from noticing he covered the world with a thick blanket of clouds. This backfired, arousing Hera's suspicions. She came down from Mount Olympus and begain dispersing the clouds.
Unfortunately, Zeus constantly cheats on Hera and he has done it over a hundred times, but in the end Hera always forgives him. But that does not make her angry and mad. This anger then goes to his sons and daughters as she takes her anger out on the children he has with the other mortals and deities.
Impregnation by Zeus
Nonnus classifies Zeus's affair with Semele as one in a set of twelve, the other eleven women on whom he begot children being Io, Europa, Plouto, Danaë, Aigina, Antiope, Leda, Dia, Alcmene, Laodameia, the mother of Sarpedon, and Olympias.
The honeymoon lasted 300 years, but it wasn't enough to satisfy Zeus. Who did Zeus marry? His sister Hera was the first and only to whom he was married, but that didn't stop him from fathering children with all and sundry, willing or not.
Hera figures out what Poseidon is up to and seduces Zeus to distract his attention away from the battle.
After the bombshell finale revelation that Kanan and Hera actually had a son, I found myself pouring through all the Kanera moments in the rest of the season again to reassess what was going on between the two of them.
II.
Aphrodite later and of her own volition had an affair with Zeus, but his jealous wife Hera laid her hands upon the belly of the goddess and cursed their offspring with malformity. Their child was the ugly god Priapos.
Zeus was known in his time as much more than the father of the gods. He was also a womanizer, and as such, he fathered many, many offspring!
Hera. The most famous of Zeus' wives, Hera was also the sister of the father of the gods, and the goddess of women, marriage, family, and childbirth.
Under the name of Callithyia, Io was regarded as the first priestess of Hera, the wife of Zeus. Zeus fell in love with her and, to protect her from the wrath of Hera, changed her into a white heifer. Hera persuaded Zeus to give her the heifer and sent Argus Panoptes (“the All-Seeing”) to watch her.
According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and had sexual intercourse with Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched.
Zeus and Metis
His first and favorite lover was Metis, a Titan goddess and mother of Athena.
Before his marriage to Hera, Zeus consorted with a number of the female Titanes (and his sister Demeter). These liaisons are ordered by Hesiod as follows: (1) Metis; (2) Themis; (3) Eurynome; (4) Demeter; (5) Mnemosyne; (6) Leto.
Zeus slept with his own daughter, Persephone, because she was there.
In his private life Zeus was quite the lothario, fathering an unbelievable number of around 100 children with many different women (but don't hate him too much – it's just a myth, after all). Of this 100, he fathered a mix of sons and daughters, many of whom were gods and goddesses, and some became great leaders.
The Mythology of Perseus
Perseus was a demi-god, the son of Zeus and a mortal named Danae. Perseus killed the famed monster Medusa, the hideous gorgon with snakes for hair who turned anyone with the misfortune of looking into her eyes into stone.
Hebe was the youngest daughter to Zeus and his wife Hera. Her name came from the Greek word for 'youth', and it was thought she had the power to temporarily restore youth in a chosen few.
He was very afraid that one of his children would kill him just as he had murdered his own father. He was so worried he started to eat his own children after they were born, much to his wife Rhea's horror!