Was Persephone kidnapped?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Was Persephone kidnapped?
Position‹2 of 2: Persphone was not kidnapped
Argument1 of 2›: Perspehone willingly joined Hades

Some interpretations suggest that Hades gave Persephone the chance to either stay and rule with him in the Underworld or to leave and go back with her mother if she desired. She went with him by choice.

The argument

In a lot of modern translations of the myth, Persephone went with Hades on the terms of love. If she went with him for reasons relating to love, then it was not kidnapping as it was her choice. One source states that, "In the pre-Hellenic transmission of Persephone’s myth, during a time when the Goddess religions were believed to rein supreme, Persephone descended into the underworld willingly". She chose to go down into the Underworld to help others, and ended up with Hades. She also chose to eat the pomegranate seeds, which she knew would seal her fate in the Underworld. She very carefully ate six seeds, which forced her to come back for six months out of the year. That's not kidnapping. Persephone knew exactly what she was doing.

Premises

[P1]In several tellings of the myth, Persephone descended into the Underworld willingly, whether out of love or to help others. [P2] She also knowingly ate six pomegranate seeds, fully aware this would bind her to the Underworld for part of each year. [P3] Acting with such deliberate knowledge of the consequences is not consistent with being kidnapped. [C] Therefore, Persephone willingly joined Hades and was not kidnapped.

Counter-arguments

More of the myths state that Persephone was, in fact, kidnapped. Relying on one source is not a good way to determine something such as this, especially when it involves myth.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The tellings are not of equal standing. The earliest and fullest surviving account, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, has her seized while gathering flowers and crying out, with the abduction arranged between Zeus and Hades and without her mother's knowledge. The "pre-Hellenic" willing descent comes from modern reconstruction rather than from an ancient source, and the premise counts recent retellings alongside texts without weighing them. [Rejecting P2] The seed episode does not do the work claimed. In the Hymn the pomegranate is given to her by Hades at the point of her release — a device to compel her return rather than a choice made freely in advance — and the number of seeds and the resulting division of the year vary between accounts. Knowing what an act entails also does not make it uncoerced when the person is already held. [Rejecting P3] The inference mistakes later acquiescence for initial consent. On the story's own terms she is taken without warning, her mother searches for her, and the arrangement is settled by negotiation between gods — none of which is altered by her acting knowingly once she is in the Underworld.