We may be pardoned, perhaps, for judging the living according to our
humor, but the dead, at least, we should judge only with our reason.
Become eternal, we should endeavor to measure them with the eternal
rule of justice. If we did this, how many characters having now an
immortality of ill, would secure a more favorable verdict. For
twenty-three centuries Xanthippe has been regarded as the type of
everything unlovely in womanhood and wifehood. We forget all the other
Grecian matrons of Periclean times, to remember this poor wife with
scorn. Yet if we would bestow half the careful scrutiny on an accurate
analysis of her position which is given to other texts of classical
writers, we might find her worthy of our sympathy more than scorn.
In the "Memorabilia" of Xenophon (II.2) Socrates is represented as
pointing out to his eldest son, Lamprocles, the duty of paying a
respectful attention to a mother who loved him so much better than any
one else, and he calls him a "wretch" who should neglect it. Indeed,
the picture he draws of the maternal relation is one of the finest
things in ancient literature. Would Socrates have urged respect and
obedience towards a mother unworthy of it? Would Lamprocles have
received the fatherly flogging and reproof as meekly as he did if he
had not been sensible of his error? And if there had been anything
incongruous in Socrates demanding for Xanthippe Lamprocles' respect
and obedience, would not Xenophon have noticed it? But it is not to
philosophers and fathers we appeal for Xanthippe; mothers and
housewives must judge her. When she married Socrates he was a
sculptor, and, according to report, a very fair one,--not, perhaps, a
Phidias, but one doing good, serviceable, paying work. He had a house
in Athens, and people paid rent and went to market then as now; and
he had a wife and family whom it is evident he ought to support.
Doubtless Xanthippe was a good housekeeper,--women with sharp tempers
usually have that compensation,--but who can keep house amiably upon
nothing? Mr. Grote tells us that Socrates relinquished his paying
profession and devoted himself to teaching, "excluding all other
business to the neglect of all means of fortune."
If he had taken money for teaching, perhaps Xanthippe might not have
opposed him so much; but he would neither ask nor receive reward. The
fact probably was, Socrates had a delight in talking, and he preferred
talking to business. Whatever _we_ may think of his "talks," Xanthippe
did not likely consider them anything wonderful. Nothing but a jury of
women whose husbands have "missions," and neglect everything for them,
could fairly judge Xanthippe on this point. It is of no use for us to
say, "Socrates was such a great man, such a divine teacher;" Xanthippe
did not know it, and a great many of the wisest and greatest of the
Athenians had no more sense in this respect than she had. Aristophanes
regularly turned him into sport for the theatres. What Christian wife
would like that? Comic plays were written about him, and the gamins
under the porticos ridiculed him. If he had been honored, Xanthippe
would have forgiven his self-imposed poverty; but to be poor, and
laughed at! Doubtless he deserved a good portion of the curtain
lectures he got.
Then Xanthippe had another cause of complaint in which she will be
sure of the sympathy of all wives. Socrates did not share in its full
bitterness the poverty to which he condemned his family. While she was
eating her pulse and olives at home, he was dining with Athenian
nobles, and drinking wine by the side of the brilliant Aspasia or the
fascinating Theodite.
We see Socrates, "splendid through the shades of time," as a great
moral teacher; but many of the Athenians of his day laughed at him,
and very few admired him. At any rate he did not provide for the wants
of his household, and even a bachelor like Saint Paul severely
condemns such a one. Certainly the men of Athens did not admire
Socrates, and probably the women of Xanthippe's acquaintance
sympathized with her,--to a woman of her temperament a very great
aggravation. It may be said all this is special pleading, but when we
have knocked at the door of certain truths in vain, we should try and
get into them by the window.