Superphysics
Ischomachus' Trains His Wife
12 minutes • 2449 words
I saw him seated in the portico of Zeus Eleutherios. He appeared to be at leisure, so I went up to him and sat by his side.
How is it that you have free time, Ischomachus?
Usually when I see you, you are doing something and not sitting idle in the marketplace.
I usually don’t have time to sit at leisure. But I promised to meet some foreign friends of mine here.
When you are not busy, where do you spend your time? What do you do?
Ischomachus smiled at my question
When they challenge me to exchange properties or perform some service to the state instead of them, the fitting out of a trireme, or the training of a chorus, nobody thinks of asking for the beautiful and good gentleman, but it is plain Ischomachus, the son of So-and-so, (5) on whom the summons is served.
I do not spend my days indoors because my wife is capable of managing our domestic affairs without my aid. In case any man, upon whom a {leitourgia} was imposed, considered that another was richer than himself, and therefore most justly chargeable with the burden, he might challenge the other to assume the burden, or to make with him an {antidosis} or exchange of property. Such a challenge, if declined, was converted into a lawsuit, or came before a heliastic court for trial."
Ah! Ischomachus, that’s what I’d like to learn from you. Did you yourself educate your wife to be all that a wife should be? Or when you received her from her parents was she already a proficient to discharge the duties of a wife?
She was under 15 years old when she wedded me. Before that, she had been most carefully brought up (7) to see and hear as little as possible, and to ask (8) the fewest questions.
or do you not think one should be satisfied, if at marriage her whole experience consisted in knowing how to take the wool and make a dress, and seeing how her mother’s handmaidens had their daily spinning-tasks assigned them?
She had received the soundest education in terms of control of appetite and self-indulgence. To me, that is the most important in the bringing-up of person.
Then all else you taught your wife yourself until you had made her capable of attending carefully to her appointed duties?
No. Instead, I offered sacrifice and prayed that I might teach and she might learn all that could make our marriage happy.
Did your wife join in sacrifice and prayer to that effect?
Most certainly, with many a vow registered to heaven to become all she should be. Her whole manner showed that she would not be neglectful of what was taught her.
What did you first teach to her?
After she got used to my hand and was tamed (11) sufficiently to play her part in a discussion, I asked her: “Did you ever wonder why I chose you as my wife of all women, and why your parents entrusted you to me of all men?
I sought the best partner of house and children just as your parents were looking for the best.
In the future we can have children. But at present, we have a house which belongs to us both as common property. All that I possess goes by my will into the common fund, and in the same way all that you deposited (15) was placed by you to the common fund. (16)
We need not stop to calculate who of us contributed most. But rather let us lay to heart this fact that whichever of us proves the better partner, he or she at once contributes what is most worth having.”
But how can I assist you? What is my ability? Everything depends on you.
My mother told me that my business was to be sober-minded!
Most true. That is what my father said to me.
But what is the proof of sober-mindedness in man or woman? Is it not so to behave that what they have of good may ever be at its best, and that new treasures from the same source of beauty and righteousness may be most amply added?
But what can do to help increase our joint estate?
Yes, you may strive to do as well as possible what Heaven has given you a natural gift for and which the law approves.
What may these things be?
They are not the things of least importance unless the things which the queen bee in her hive presides over are of slight importance to the bee community; for the gods"
The gods exercised much care and judgment in compacting male and female, so as to secure the greatest possible advantage (18) to the pair.
Since no doubt the underlying principle of the bond is first and foremost to perpetuate through procreation the races of living creatures; (19) and next, as the outcome of this bond, for human beings at any rate, a provision is made by which they may have sons and daughters to support them in old age.
“The way of life of human beings, not being maintained like that of cattle (20) in the open air, obviously demands roofed homesteads.
But if these same human beings are to have anything to bring in under cover, some one to carry out these labours of the field under high heaven (21) must be found them, since such operations as the breaking up of fallow with the plough, the sowing of seed, the planting of trees, the pasturing and herding of flocks, are one and all open-air employments on which the supply of products necessary to life depends.
“As soon as these products of the field are safely housed and under cover, new needs arise. There must be some one to guard the store and some one to perform such necessary operations as imply the need of shelter. (22) Shelter, for instance, is needed for the rearing of infant children; shelter is needed for the various processes of converting the fruits of earth into food, and in like manner for the fabrication of clothing out of wool.
But whereas both of these, the indoor and the outdoor occupations alike, demand new toil and new attention, to meet the case," I added, “God made provision (23) from the first by shaping, as it seems to me, the woman’s nature for indoor and the man’s for outdoor occupations.
Man’s body and soul He furnished with a greater capacity for enduring heat and cold, wayfaring and military marches; or, to repeat, He laid upon his shoulders the outdoor works.
“While in creating the body of woman with less capacity for these things,” I continued, “God would seem to have imposed on her the indoor works; and knowing that He had implanted in the woman and imposed upon her the nurture of new-born babies, He endowed her with a larger share of affection for the new-born child than He bestowed upon man.
Since He imposed on woman the guardianship of the things imported from without, God, in His wisdom, perceiving that a fearful spirit was no detriment to guardianship, (25) endowed the woman with a larger measure of timidity than He bestowed on man. Knowing further that he to whom the outdoor works belonged would need to defend them against malign attack, He endowed the man in turn with a larger share of courage.
Seeing that both alike feel the need of giving and receiving, He set down memory and carefulness between them for their common use, (26) so that you would find it hard to determine which of the two, the male or the female, has the larger share of these. So, too, God set down between them for their common use the gift of self-control, where needed, adding only to that one of the twain, whether man or woman, which should prove the better, the power to be rewarded with a larger share of this perfection. And for the very reason that their natures are not alike adapted to like ends, they stand in greater need of one another; and the married couple is made more useful to itself, the one fulfilling what the other lacks.
“Now, being well aware of this, my wife,” I added, “and knowing well what things are laid upon us twain by God Himself, must we not strive to perform, each in the best way possible, our respective duties?
Law, too, gives her consent—law and the usage of mankind, by sanctioning the wedlock of man and wife; and just as God ordained them to be partners in their children, so the law establishes their common ownership of house and estate. Custom, moreover, proclaims as beautiful those excellences of man and woman with which God gifted them at birth. (28) Thus for a woman to bide tranquilly at home rather than roam aborad is no dishonour; but for a man to remain indoors, instead of devoting himself to outdoor pursuits, is a thing discreditable.
But if a man does things contrary to the nature given him by God, the chances are, (29) such insubordination escapes not the eye of Heaven= he pays the penalty, whether of neglecting his own works, or of performing those appropriate to woman."
I added= “Just such works, if I mistake not, that same queen-bee we spoke of labours hard to perform, like yours, my wife, enjoined upon her by God Himself.”
What sort of works are these? What has the queen-bee to do that she seems so like myself, or I like her in what I have to do?
She too stays in the hive and suffers not the other bees to idle. Those whose duty it is to work outside she sends forth to their labours; and all that each of them brings in, she notes and receives and stores against the day of need; but when the season for use has come, she distributes a just share to each. Again, it is she who presides over the fabric of choicely-woven cells within. She looks to it that warp and woof are wrought with speed and beauty. Under her guardian eye the brood of young (31) is nursed and reared; but when the days of rearing are past and the young bees are ripe for work, she sends them out as colonists with one of the seed royal (32) to be their leader." (31) Or, “the growing progeny is reared to maturity.”
“Shall I then have to do these things?” asked my wife.
Yes, you will need in the same way to stay indoors, despatching to their toils without those of your domestics whose work lies there. Over those whose appointed tasks are wrought indoors, it will be your duty to preside; yours to receive the stuffs brought in; yours to apportion part for daily use, and yours to make provision for the rest, to guard and garner it so that the outgoings destined for a year may not be expended in a month. It will be your duty, when the wools are introduced, to see that clothing is made for those who need; your duty also to see that the dried corn is rendered fit and serviceable for food. “There is just one of all these occupations which devolve upon you,” I added, “you may not find so altogether pleasing.
Should any one of our household fall sick, it will be your care to see and tend them to the recovery of their health.” “Nay,” she answered, “that will be my pleasantest of tasks, if careful nursing may touch the springs of gratitude and leave them friendlier than before.”
And I (continued Ischomachus) was struck with admiration at her answer, and replied= “Think you, my wife, it is through some such traits of forethought seen in their mistress-leader that the hearts of bees are won, and they are so loyally affectioned towards her that, if ever she abandon her hive, not one of them will dream of being left behind; (33) but one and all must follow her.”
And my wife made answer to me= “It would much astonish me (said she) did not these leader’s works, you speak of, point to you rather than myself. Methinks mine would be a pretty (34) guardianship and distribution of things indoors without your provident care to see that the importations from without were duly made.” (34) Or, “ridiculous.”
Just so. Mine would be a pretty (35) importation if there were no one to guard what I imported. Do you not see how pitiful is the case of those unfortunates who pour water in their sieves for ever, as the story goes, (36) and labour but in vain?"
“Pitiful enough, poor souls,” she answered, “if that is what they do.” “But there are other cares, you know, and occupations,” I answered, “which are yours by right, and these you will find agreeable. This, for instance, to take some maiden who knows naught of carding wool and to make her proficient in the art, doubling her usefulness; or to receive another quite ignorant of housekeeping or of service, and to render her skilful, loyal, serviceable, till she is worth her weight in gold; or again, when occasion serves, you have it in your power to requite by kindness the well-behaved whose presence is a blessing to your house; or maybe to chasten the bad character, should such an one appear. But the greatest joy of all will be to prove yourself my better; to make me your faithful follower; knowing no dread lest as the years advance you should decline in honour in your household, but rather trusting that, though your hair turn gray, yet, in proportion as you come to be a better helpmate to myself and to the children, a better guardian of our home, so will your honour increase throughout the household as mistress, wife, and mother, daily more dearly prized. Since,” I added, “it is not through excellence of outward form, (37) but by reason of the lustre of virtues shed forth upon the life of man, that increase is given to things beautiful and good.”
(38) Al. “For growth is added to things ‘beautiful and good,’ not through the bloom of youth but virtuous perfections, an increase coextensive with the life of man.” See Breit. ad loc. That, Socrates, or something like that, as far as I may trust my memory, records the earliest conversation which I held with her.
