all things, a visionary and a theorist. He is essentially a masculine
genius (with him we hear nothing of wife and children), and he lacks that
grip of reality which the natural feminist, Euripides, instinctively
possesses. He regarded the condition of society in his native city with
a mixture of dislike and contempt, and he saw that the main cause of
this condition was the indifference to women and children which the
ordinary Athenian prided himself on displaying. In his feminism and his
educational reforms, Plato is deeply influenced by Spartan teaching, but
the main structure is his own work, based not on any actual experience,
but on ideal theory. In this idealism lies both the strength and weakness
of his feminist doctrine. He refuses to allow himself to be influenced,
as Aristotle after him was influenced, by the actual state of inferiority
to which Athenian women had been reduced; but in forming a society
which should be the opposite of the degenerate Athens of his day, he is
inclined to disregard some of the invincible facts of human nature.
Plato’s feminist doctrines are most clearly stated in the fifth book of
the _Republic_ and the sixth, seventh, and eighth books of the _Laws_.
These works are accessible to English readers (or, rather, their rough
substance is accessible, for we can never reproduce the delicate music of
Plato’s prose, and his subtle irony evaporates in English) in Jowett’s
translation, and in the excellent version of the _Republic_ by Davies and
Vaughan. But it may be convenient to give a brief summary of his argument.
In the fifth book of the _Republic_ the ideal State is being discussed,
and the rule κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων (‘among friends everything is common
property’) has been laid down. It has, moreover, been made applicable to
wives and children, for Plato at first hardly escapes from the fallacy
that a man’s wife is as much a piece of property as a dog or a table.
The organization of the communistic _régime_ in detail then comes up
for consideration, but it is unanimously resolved that the question of
community of women is of vital importance and must be explained at once.
The philosopher accordingly, with some pretended reluctance, begins with
a prayer to Nemesis—‘I am on a slippery road, and fear lest missing my
footing I drag my friends down with me’—and thus approaches his subject:
‘The aim of our theory was, I believe, to make our men, as it
were, guardians of a flock?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let us keep on the same track and give corresponding rules for
the propagation of the species, and for rearing the young; and
let us observe whether we find them suitable or not.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Thus. Do we think that the females of watch-dogs ought to
guard the flock along with the males, and hunt with them, and
share in all their other duties; or that the females ought to
stay at home, because they are disabled by having to breed and
rear the cubs, while the males are to labour and be charged
with all the care of the flocks?’
‘We expect them to share in whatever is to be done; only we
treat the females as the weaker, and the males as the stronger.’
‘Is it possible to use animals for the same work if you do not
give them the same training and education?’
‘It is not.’
‘If, then, we are to employ the women in the same duties as the
men, we must give them the same instructions?’
‘Yes.’
‘To the men we give music and gymnastic.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we must train the women also in the same two arts, giving
them, besides, a military education and treating them in the
same way as the men.’
The professional humorist is then requested to refrain from the obvious
jokes suggested by the idea of women stripped for exercise or old ladies
practising athletics, and to remember that all such things are purely
matters of custom. The real question is whether the nature of the human
female is such as to enable her to share in all the employments of the
male, or whether she is wholly unequal to any, or equal to some and not
to others; and, if so, to which class military service belongs. Women
certainly are different from men, but we must not be misled by the word
‘different.’ A bald-headed man is different from a long-haired man, but
he may be just as good a cobbler, or a statesman. So women differ from
men in the part they play in the propagation of the species; but that
difference does not affect the question as to whether men and women
should engage in the same pursuits. The argument of the adaptability of
the sexes to various occupations is discussed, and this point is reached:
‘I conclude then, my friend, that none of the occupations which
comprehend the ordering of a State belong to woman as woman,
nor yet to man as man; but natural gifts are to be found here
and there in both sexes alike; and, so far as her nature is
concerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits as well as
the man: though in all of them the woman is weaker than the
man.’
‘Precisely so.’
‘Shall we, then, appropriate all virtues to men and none to
women?’
‘How can we?’
‘On the contrary, we shall hold, I imagine, that one woman may
have talents for medicine, and another be without them; and
that one may be musical and another unmusical?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘And shall we not also say, that one woman may have
qualifications for gymnastic exercises and for war, and another
be unwarlike and without a taste for gymnastics?’
‘I think we shall.’
‘Again, may there not be a love of knowledge in one, and a
distaste for it in another? And may not one be spirited, and
another spiritless?’
‘True again.’
‘If that be so, there are some women who are fit, and others
who are unfit, for the office of guardians. For were not those
the qualities we selected, in the case of men, as marking their
fitness for that office?’
‘Yes, they were.’
‘Then, as far as the guardianship of a state is concerned,
there is no difference between the natures of the man and of
the woman, but only various degrees of weakness and strength?’
‘Apparently there is none.’
‘Then we shall have to select duly qualified women also to
share in the life and official labours of the duly qualified
men; since we find that they are competent to the work, and of
kindred nature with the men.’
It seems to Plato that it is both practicable and desirable that men and
women should have the same training and the same duties; not, indeed, all
men and all women, for Plato’s is an aristocratic State and he is chiefly
legislating for his guardian class, but at least the better men and the
better women. So he does not shrink from absolute similarity of education:
Then the wives of our guardians must strip for their exercises,
inasmuch as they will put on virtue instead of raiment, and
must bear their part in war and the other duties comprised in
the guardianship of the State, and must engage in no other
occupations: though of these tasks the lighter parts must be
given to the women rather than to the men, in consideration of
the weakness of their sex. But as for the man who laughs at the
idea of undressed women going through gymnastic exercises, as
a means of realising what is most perfect, his ridicule is but
‘unripe fruit plucked from the tree of wisdom’ and he knows
not, to all appearance, what he is laughing at or what he is
doing: for it is, and ever will be, a most excellent maxim,
that the useful is noble and the hurtful base.
Thus the first wave of the discussion is successfully surmounted: the
second and more dangerous is the proposition that wives and children
shall be held in common. The company refuse to admit without discussion
that it is either desirable or practicable, and a double line of argument
is used. If men and women are educated and live together, human nature
will soon bring about even closer associations. Any irregular union
would be an offence against the State, and it is of the first importance
to science that the best citizens should have the largest number of
children. Therefore marriages and births must be a matter of State
regulation, and any possible discontent must be averted by an elaborate
system of pretence. The details are fixed:
‘As fast as the children are born they will be received by
officers appointed for the purpose, whether men or women, or
both: for I presume that the State offices also will be held in
common both by men and women.’
‘They will.’
‘Well, these officers, I suppose, will take the children of
good parents and place them in the general nursery under
the charge of certain nurses, living apart in a particular
quarter of the city; while the issue of inferior parents,
and all imperfect children that are born to the others, will
be concealed, as is fitting, in some mysterious and unknown
hiding-place.’
‘Yes, if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure.’
‘And will not these same officers have to superintend the
rearing of the children, bringing the mothers to the nursery
when their breasts are full, but taking every precaution that
no mother shall know her own child, and providing other women
that have milk, if the mothers have not enough: and must they
not take care to limit the time during which the mothers are
to suckle the children, committing the task of sitting up at
night, and other troubles incident to infancy, to nurses and
attendants?’
‘You make child-bearing a very easy business for the wives of
the guardians.’
‘Yes, and so it ought to be.’
The second argument may be briefly stated. In the ideal State there will
be no such thing as private property: a man will not have a house or
dogs of his own, _therefore_ (for our philosopher again seems hardly to
realise that the analogy between house and wife is not quite exact), he
will not have a wife and children of his own. The whole subject concludes
with a return to the original topic of equality of opportunity in these
terms:
‘Then you concede the principle that the women are to be put
upon the same footing as the men, according to our description,
in education, in bearing children, and in watching over the
other citizens, and that whether they remain at home or
are sent into the field, they are to share the duties of
guardianship with the men, and join with them in the chase like
dogs, and have everything in common with them so far as it is
at all possible, and that in so doing they will be following
the most desirable course and not violating the natural
relation which ought to govern the mutual fellowship of the
sexes?’
‘I do concede all this,’ he replied.
‘Then does it not remain for us,’ I proceeded, ‘to determine
whether this community can possibly subsist among men as it
can among other animals, and what are the conditions of its
possibility?’
‘You have anticipated me in a suggestion I was about to make.’
‘As for their warlike operations, I suppose it is easy to see
how they will be conducted.’
‘How?’ he asked.
‘Why, both sexes will take the field together and they will
also carry with them such of their children as are strong
enough, in order that, like the children of all other
craftsmen, they may be spectators of those occupations in
which, when grown up, they will themselves be engaged: and they
will require them, besides looking on, to act as servants and
attendants in all the duties of war, and to wait upon their
fathers and mothers.’
It will be noticed that Plato does not shrink from the question of
military service for women. If a man is unwilling or unable to defend his
country, he certainly has no claim to citizen rights, nor has a woman.
It may reasonably be argued that the qualification for a vote is neither
property nor sex, but the proof that the individual has passed through
the period of training necessary to qualify him as a defender of the
fatherland. The qualities necessary for a soldier are three: courage,
strength, and skill. No one acquainted with women can doubt that they
possess the first: in the passive courage which a modern soldier chiefly
needs it is possible that women have a slight advantage over men, and
they usually recover more quickly from wounds. The strength that is
required in modern warfare is chiefly endurance: the power to stand
exposure to the weather, insufficient food, lack of sleep and comfort;
marching capacity. No one who knows the vagabonds and strollers of our
English roads will say that women are not capable of supporting all
these hardships as well as men. The female tramp is every whit as sturdy
and hardy as her male companion. Finally, the skill to handle a gun and
the power of shooting straight are matters almost entirely of training:
the natural qualities, a steady hand and a sharp eye, that help such a
training are by no means predominantly male characteristics.
Plato for his part is very insistent on this question, and returns to
it several times in the _Laws_. The State is to maintain schools, where
the art of war in all its branches shall be taught to males and females
alike. Gymnastics and horsemanship are as suitable to women as to men.
Boys and girls together must learn the use of the bow, the javelin, and
the sling, and in every well-ordered community at least one day a month
shall be set aside for warlike exercise, in which men, women and children
shall take part. Female education will include a definite military
training: the girls will learn how to use their weapons and to move about
lightly in armour; the grown woman will study evolutions and tactics.
Finally, in all public festivals and competitions the unmarried girls
shall compete with the youths in running and in contests in armour.
It is on this point of military training, perhaps, that Plato stands
apart from modern sentiment: most of his other ideals of feminine
education are in process of being realised, even that which allowed
the educated woman to become herself a teacher, and rank with male
colleagues. In the inner circle of the Academy, the first University
College of which we know, men and women met on equal terms, and shared
responsibilities and privileges. The names of two such women (neither
of them, be it noted, Athenians) are recorded for us by Dicæarchus and
Lastheneia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius, ‘who even used to wear
male attire,’ hold out their hands across the centuries to Mrs. Bryant
and Miss Busk.
Plato, indeed, in spite of his idealism, is often very practical, and on
the question of marriage his doctrine is most sound.
The simple law of marriage is this: A man _must_ marry before
he is thirty-five; if not, he shall be fined and lose all his
privileges. Mankind are immortal because they leave children
behind them; and for a man to deprive himself of immortality
is impiety. He who obeys the law shall be free and pay no
fine; but the disobedient shall pay a yearly fine, in order
that he may not imagine that his celibacy will bring him ease
or profit: moreover, he shall not share in any of the honours
which the State gives to the aged.
Marriage is to be regarded as a duty, and ‘every man shall follow,
not after the marriage which is most pleasing to himself, but after
that which is most beneficial to the State.’ This cannot be effected
by definite regulations, but we should ‘try and charm the spirits of
men into believing’ that their children are of more importance than
themselves, and that a child’s disposition will depend upon the happy
blending of its parents.
Plato realises that children are the State’s vital interest, and his
concern for them extends to the period before birth. Husband and wife
are to consider how they are to produce for the State the best and
fairest specimens of children which they can. If proper attention is
given to anything, success is certain; and the eugenic system is to be
under the definite control of a committee of women, who shall meet every
day and spend a third part of the day in ensuring that the regulations
for perfect births are duly carried out. Their care is to be expressly
extended to the future mothers, for the period of a child’s life before
birth is equally decisive, and the young wife must be carefully tended,
kept from excessive pleasures or pains, and be encouraged to cultivate
habits of gentleness, benevolence, and kindness.
Then comes the proper management of infants, and Plato is very convinced
of the importance of constant motion for the young child, who in a Greek
household was often closely bandaged in swaddling clothes and left to its
own resources. He anticipates Aristippus, who, holding that pleasure was
the chief end of life, found the best definition of pleasure to be ‘a
gentle motion,’ and he is prepared to make his ideal state for infants at
least a pleasant one.
The first principle in relation both to the body and soul of
very young children is that nursing and moving about by day
and night is good for them all, and that the younger they are
the more they will need it. Infants should live, if it were
possible, as if they were always rocking at sea. Exercise and
motion in the earliest years greatly contribute to create a
part of virtue in the soul: the child’s virtue is cheerfulness,
and good nursing makes a gentle and a cheerful child.
This first period will last till the age of three, when the child will
begin to find out its own natural modes of amusement in company with
other children: from three to six, boys and girls should live and
play together: after six they should separate, and begin to receive
instruction.
On the subject of co-education, which may be regarded as the best
practical solution for the cure of sex-ignorance, Plato speaks with a
rather uncertain voice. His general theory presupposes an identity of
training, and the free mingling of boys and girls, young men and women,
in sport and work. But he is disturbed by his conviction of the natural
badness of boys contrasted with girls:
Of all animals, the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch
as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated;
he is the most insidious, sharp-witted, and insubordinate of
creatures; therefore he must be bound with many bridles.
The further difficulty, that constant friendly intercourse between young
men and women may lead to undesirable results is discussed at some length
in the _Laws_, p. 835, and the very sensible conclusion is arrived at
that a healthy public opinion will be the first result of these natural
conditions of comradeship, and that the general sentiment will be the
strongest of checks upon undue licence. The importance of example in
education and morals is rightly insisted upon:
The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the
same time: not to admonish them, but to be always carrying out
your own admonitions in practice.
Finally, education is of supreme importance to a country:
The minister of education is the most important officer of
State; of all appointments his is the greatest; he will rule
according to law, must be fifty years old, and have children of
his own, both boys and girls by preference, at any rate one or
the other.
These are some of the salient points of Plato’s teaching, but a careful
reading of the _Republic_ and the _Laws_ will reveal many further issues
and many side-lights on the main thesis. Plato does not trouble to be
rigorously consistent, and, like Euripides, he does not hesitate at times
to play the part of the candid friend, and to point out what he thinks
are the natural weaknesses of the female sex. Sometimes he is right,
sometimes he is wrong. ‘Women,’ he says, ‘are too prone to secrecy and
stealth; they are accustomed to creep into dark places and resist being
dragged into the light.’
Here Plato seems to hit the truth. If there is one quality—call it
virtue or vice, as you will—which is peculiarly a woman’s and not a
man’s characteristic, it is secretiveness. The result of many centuries
of self-suppression, it gives a certain aggravating charm to the female
mind, and usually does no particular harm. But it is, perhaps, the
chief reason of women’s comparative failure in literature. Sincerity in
writing is the saving grace, and if a book is not frank, it should never
be written. Few women authors resemble Sappho, or Jane Austen, or Mme.
Colette in contemporary French literature, who, unlike though they are
in the circumstances of their lives, do all make a serious attempt at
truth. Most women fail in frankness towards themselves and their readers.
George Eliot, Ouida, George Sand (to take another typical and strongly
differentiated trio) dissemble their facts as much as they dissemble
their names. Like ostriches, they hide their faces under a cloud of
words.
XII.—THE ATTIC ORATORS
To turn from Plato’s ideal State to the actual condition of woman’s
life during the fourth century in Athens, as we have it revealed in
the pages of the orators, is like passing from a breezy hillside into
a dark, close-shut room. We see the working of the harem system, with
all its atmosphere of secrecy and suspicion. The women are closely
watched; for it is presumed that they will be unfaithful to their
husbands if they can: they live secluded in the women’s quarter of the
house—the gynæconitis—and for any strange man to enter their rooms is
a grave impropriety. In Demosthenes, for example, we find it imputed
to Androtion, as a proof of unbearable insolence, that in his capacity
of tax-collector he forced his way into the women’s apartments, and
compelled the master of the house to hide under the bed, putting him
thus to shame before his womankind. That a wife should appear publicly
with her husband at a dinner party, and take a share in men’s pleasures,
is equally an offence against morality. Neæra was known to have sat at
dinner with her husband and his friends, and this fact, testified by
witnesses, is taken as an obvious proof that she was a woman of abandoned
character. The sister of Nicodemus, Isæus argues, could not have been
legally married, for she was often seen at entertainments with the man
she called her husband, and ‘wedded wives do not go out to dinner with
their husbands, or expect to join in festivities.’
The doctrine that a wife is her husband’s property is applied to the
fullest extent, and any offence against that property is punished with
the utmost rigour of the law. A husband who finds another man in his
harem is allowed to put him to death. At Athens there is no pretence of
‘the sanctity of marriage’: the offence and the punishment is the same
whether the intrigue is with the master’s wife or with his concubine:
each is equally the master’s property, to be protected at any cost. It
is a more heinous crime to make love to a woman who belongs to another
man than to offer her violence; for the offence is viewed solely from the
owner’s side, and a woman who willingly yields to another is outraging
her lawful master’s _amour propre_ more deeply than if she were taken by
force. The lover is put to death; the ravisher pays a fine: the point
of view being much the same as used to hold in English law, where the
wife-beater was regarded as a less offensive character than the poacher.
But if the husband of an erring wife had the support of the law, however
violent his methods of revenge, the case was very different when the
woman was the offended party. There is an anecdote in Plutarch’s Life of
Alcibiades which reveals the attitude of the Athenian lawgivers.
Hipparete made a prudent and affectionate wife;—but at last
growing very uneasy at her husband’s associating with such
a number of courtesans, both strangers and Athenians, she
quitted his house and went to her brother’s. Alcibiades went
on with his debaucheries, and gave himself no pain about his
wife; but it was necessary for her, in order to obtain a legal
separation, to give in a bill of divorce to the archon, and to
appear personally with it; for the sending of it by another
hand would not do. When she came to do this according to law,
Alcibiades rushed in, caught her in his arms, and carried her
through the market-place to his own house, no one presuming
to oppose him, or to take her from him. From that time she
remained with him until her death, which happened not long
after, when Alcibiades was upon his voyage to Ephesus. Nor does
the violence used in this case seem to be contrary to the laws
either of society in general or of that republic in particular.
For the law of Athens, in requiring her who wants to be
divorced to appear publicly in person, probably intended to
give the husband an opportunity to meet with her and to recover
her.—_Plutarch, ‘Alcibiades,’ Langhorne’s Translation._