I tend to believe that the myths are not to be taken literally but that they contain deeper truths about the nature of Life, the Universe, and Everything in spite of their less-than-factual nature.
I completely agree, Adept Thorn (

). However, myths also can be quite revealing of the culture from which they sprang--what the concerns of that people were, what they valued, what the conditions in which they lived were, etc. In that light, I wonder what the prevalence of and attitudes towards rape displayed in the Greek myths tell us.