Lectures · Lecture 3

3.1

When someone asked him whether women too should practice philosophy, he began to teach in something like this way that they should. Women, he said, have received the same reason from the gods as men, the reason which we use in our dealings with one another and by which we consider each thing, whether it is good or bad, honorable or shameful. Likewise the female has the same senses as the male: sight, hearing, smell, and the rest. Likewise too the same parts of the body belong to each, and neither has any more than the other. Furthermore, a desire and natural affinity for virtue belongs not only to men but also to women; for women are by nature no less inclined than men to be pleased by noble and just deeds and to reject their opposites. Since this is so, why on earth would it be fitting for men to seek and consider how they may live well—which is what practicing philosophy is—but not for women? Is it because it is fitting for men to be good, but not for women? Let us examine, one by one, each of the qualities that befit a woman who is to be good; for it will appear that each of them would best come to her from philosophy. To begin with, a woman must be a good manager of the household, capable of reckoning what is advantageous to the home, and fit to govern the servants. These qualities, I say, would belong most of all to the woman who practices philosophy; since each of them is a part of life, and the knowledge concerning life is nothing other than philosophy, and the philosopher, as Socrates said, continually considers "whatever of good and evil has been done in the halls." But a woman must also be self-controlled: such as to keep herself pure from unlawful sexual relations, and pure from intemperance regarding the other pleasures, not a slave to desires, not quarrelsome, not extravagant, not overly concerned with her appearance. These are the works of the self-controlled woman; and in addition to these, there are those: to master anger, not to be overcome by grief, and to be stronger than every passion. These are the things the philosophical account enjoins; and the one who has learned them and trained in them seems to me to become most orderly, whether that person be man or woman. What then? These matters stand thus; but would not a woman who practices philosophy be just, a blameless partner in life, a good coworker in harmony, a careful guardian of her husband and children, and entirely pure of love of gain and greed? And who would be such more than the woman philosopher, since she must by all necessity—if indeed she is truly a philosopher—consider committing injustice worse than suffering it, inasmuch as it is more shameful, and regard being at a disadvantage as better than gaining an unfair advantage, and moreover love her children more than life itself?

3.2

And what woman could be more just than one who is disposed in this way? Moreover, it is fitting that the educated woman be more courageous than the uneducated, and the woman philosopher more than the untrained; that she should endure nothing shameful either through fear of death or through shrinking from hardship, and should cower before no one because he is well-born, or powerful, or wealthy, or even, by Zeus, because he is a tyrant. For it belongs to her to have practiced thinking greatly, and to consider death not an evil and life not a good; and likewise not to shun hardship and not to pursue freedom from hardship at all costs. Hence it is likely that such a woman is also industrious with her own hands and able to bear hardship, of the sort to nurse at her own breast the children she bears, to serve her husband with her own hands, and to do without hesitation the things that some consider fit only for slaves. Would not such a woman be a great benefit to the man who has married her, an ornament to her kinsfolk, and a good example to those who know her? But, by Zeus, some say that the women who take up with philosophers must for the most part become self-willed and bold, when, abandoning the keeping of the household, they turn to living among men and practice arguments and play the sophist and analyze syllogisms, though they ought rather to be sitting at home spinning wool. But I, for my part, would not think it right that even men who practice philosophy—let alone women—should abandon their proper tasks and be concerned with arguments alone; rather, I say that whatever arguments they take up, they should take up for the sake of deeds. For just as there is no benefit in an argument about medicine unless it leads to the health of the human body, so too, if a philosopher has or teaches some argument, there is no benefit in it unless it leads to the virtue of the human soul. Above all we must examine the argument which we think the women who practice philosophy should follow, to see whether it can make them bold—the argument which declares modesty the greatest good; whether it accustoms them to live more recklessly—the argument which prescribes the utmost restraint; whether it fails to teach self-control—the argument which shows intemperance to be the ultimate evil; whether it fails to urge them to manage the household—the argument which presents household management as a virtue. And the argument of the philosophers also calls upon the woman to be content . . . and to work with her own hands.