A Midsummer Night's Dream: Character Analysis on Theseus

Out of the many characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of the first ones we are introduced to is Theseus. Theseus is a famous and heroic character in many other stories concerning Ancient Greece, however in this story you can't help but dislike Theseus sightly. As the duke of his town, he is the leader of the things that goes on, more importantly marriages. Hermia is a girl that loves a man named Lysander and he loves her back, but is promised by her father to another man named Demetrius who also "loves" her (she does not share the same feeling). Athenian law states that the daughter must obey the father and marry whoever the father wishes regardless of what she wants, or else she is allowed to be killed by the father. Theseus knows that Hermia doesn't wish to marry Demetrius and wants to marry Lysander, however Hermia's father has the law on his side and therefor has Theseus on his side. Even when Lysander tells Theseus about Demetrius' incredibly shameful abandonment of Helena (another girl he once "loved") for Hermia, Theseus simply dismissed it and ignores that fact and continues to support Demetrius and Hermia's father.
Theseus is a man of the law and therefor must follow the rules and cultural traditions. One such tradition is that women really have no say in what goes on in their lives. They are married off and treated somewhat like objects of men. Theseus simply disregards Hermia's wishes and supports the father fully because the law states that the father has final say and even the right to kill the daughter if she disobeys. He offers Hermia a nun's life, the life of a single woman who is to be chast for her entire life as the only alternative to marrying who her father wants. Theseus seems too caught up in his own awaiting marriage and affairs to really hear out Hermia and Lysander's side of things and simply goes by the book enforcing the law to his full extent, in which case is not such a good thing.