What the life of an Athenian lady was conceived to be illuminated by this picture drawn by Xenophon, the well-known pupil of Socrates. Of course in this essay Xenophon is setting forth what he conceives to have been an ideal marriage: still he is drawing an ideal he assumes to be capable of realization in Athens. This extract gives considerable insight into the management of Attic homes early in the fourth century B.C.E. The story is supposed to be narrated by Socrates.
It chanced one day that I saw my friend Ischomachus seated in the portico of Zeus Eleutherios [in the Athenian agora], and as he seemed to be at leisure I went up to him, and sitting down by his side, accosted him: “How is this? As a rule, when I see you, you are doing something, or at any rate not sitting idle in the market place.”
“Nor would you see me now– so sitting, Socrates,” said he, “except that I had promised to meet some strangers, friends of mine, here.”
“And when you are not so employed,” said I, “where, in heaven’s name, do you spend your time, and how do you employ yourself? I am truly very anxious to know from your own lips by what conduct you have earned for yourself the title (beautiful and good)?”
[Ischomachus laughed at the compliment, and said that when he was called on for any public service] “nobody thinks of asking for the ‘beautiful and good’ gentleman, it is plain ‘Ischomachus the son of so-and-so’ on whom the process is served. But I certainly . . . do not spend my days indoors, if for no other reason than because my wife can manage all our domestic affairs without my aid.”
“Ah!” said I, “and that is just what I dearly want to learn about. Did you educate your wife yourself, to be all that a wife should be, or [when you married her] was she already proficient?”
“Well skilled?” he replied, — “why, what skill was she likely to bring with her? Not yet fifteen when she married me, and during her whole previous life most carefully trained to see and hear as little as possible, and to ask the fewest questions. Shouldn’t anybody be satisfied, if at marriage her whole experience consisted in knowing how to take wool and make a dress and see that her mother’s handwomen had their daily spinning tasks assigned? For (he added) as regards control of appetite and self-indulgence, she had the soundest education, and that I take it is the chief thing in the bringing up of man or woman.”
“Then all else, (said I) you taught your wife yourself, Ischomachus, until you had made her capable of attending carefully to her proper duties?”
“That I did not do (he replied) until I had offered sacrifice, and prayed that I might teach, and she might learn all that could conduce to the happiness of us twain.”
Socrates. And did your wife join you in the sacrifice and prayer to that effect?
Isch. Most certainly, and with many a vow registered to heaven to become all that she ought to be.
[Socrates now asks Ischomachus to tell how he educated his wife.]
“Why, Socrates (he answered), when after a time she had been accustomed to my hand, that is, tamed sufficiently to play her part in a discussion, I put her this question, ‘Did you ever stop to consider, dear wife, what led me to choose you, and your parents to intrust you to me? It was surely not because either of us would have any trouble in finding another consort. No! it was with deliberate intent, I for myself, and your parents for you, to discover the best partners of house and children we could find. . . . If at some future time God grant us children, we will take counsel together how best to bring them up, for that, too, will be a common interest, and a common blessing if haply they live to fight our battles and we find in them hereafter support and succor for ourselves. But at present here is our house, which belongs to both alike. It is common property, for all that I own goes by my will to the common fund, and in the same way was deposited your dowry. We need not stop to calculate in figures which it is of us who has contributed the most: rather let us lay to heart the fact that whichever of us proves the better partner, he or she at once contributes what is most worth having.'”
[Ischomachus’s wife now asks more particularly what her duties are to be; and her husband answers:]
“You will need to stay indoors, and dispatch to their toils such of your servants whose work lies outside the house. Those whose duties are indoors you will manage. It will be your task to receive the stuffs brought in, to apportion part for daily use, and 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 brought in, to see that clothing is made for those who have need. You must also see that the dried corn is made fit and serviceable for food. Then, too, there is something else not altogether pleasing. If any of the household fall sick, it will be your care to see and tend them to the recovery of their health.”
Wife. Nay, — that will be my pleasantest task, if only careful nursing can touch the springs of gratitude and leave them friendlier than before. . . . But mine would be a ridiculous guardianship and distribution of things indoors without your provident care to see that the importations from without are duly made.
Isch. Just so, and mine would be a pretty piece of business, if there were no one to guard what I brought in. Do you not see how pitiful is the case of those unfortunates who pour water into their sieves forever, as the story goes, and labor but in vain?
Wife. Pitiful enough, poor souls, if that is what they do.
Isch. But there are other cares, you know, and occupations, which are yours by right, and these you will find agreeable. This, for instance, — to take some girl who knows nothing of carding wool, and to make her skillful in the art, doubling her usefulness; or to receive another quite ignorant of housekeeping or of service, and to render her skillful, 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 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 honor in the 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 honor increase throughout the household as mistress, wife, and mother, daily more dearly prized.
[The wife carried out Ischomachus’s instructions marvelously well: later they undertook to go through the house together, with a view to putting it in the best of order.]
Isch. [continuing] We proceeded to set apart the ornaments and holiday attire of the wife, and the husband’s clothing both for festivals and war: the bedding both for the women’s and for the men’s apartments; next the shoes and sandals for them both. There was one division devoted to arms and armor, another to instruments used for carding wool, another to implements for making bread; another for cooking utensils, one for what we use in the bath, another for the things that go with the kneading trough, another for the service of the table. . . . We selected and set aside the supplies required for the month, and under a separate head we stored away what we computed would be needed for the year.
[Ischomachus adds that at another time he told his wife not to use cosmetics, nor to think that she made her face more handsome with white enamel or rouge, and to leave off high-heeled shoes: she promised to comply, but asked her husband if he could advise her how she might become not a false show, but really fair to look upon? To which he replied:]
Do not be forever seated like a slave, but, with Heaven’s help, to assume the attitude of a true mistress standing before the loom, and where your knowledge gives you the superiority, there give the aid of your instruction, and where your knowledge fails, as bravely try to learn. I counsel you to oversee the baking woman as she makes the bread; to stand beside the housekeeper as she measures out her stores: to go on tours of inspection to see if all things are in order as they should be. For, as it seems to me, this will be at once walking exercise and supervision. And as an excellent gymnastic I urge you to knead the dough, and roll the paste; to shake the coverlets and make the beds; and if you train yourself in exercise of this sort you will enjoy your food, grow vigorous in health, and your complexion will in very truth be lovelier. The very look and aspect of the wife, the mistress, seen in rivalry with that of her attendants, being as she is at once more fair and more becomingly adorned, has an attractive charm, and not the less because her acts are acts of grace, not services enforced. Whereas your ordinary fine lady, seated in solemn state, would seem to court comparison with painted counterfeits of womanhood.
[Ischomachus concludes by saying to Socrates], And I would have you to know that still to-day my wife is living in a style as that which I taught her, and now recount to you.
How an Athenian Gentleman passed His Morning
Ischomachus, who has narrated to Socrates how he trained up his wife to be a model helpmate, tells how he spends his own time in the morning and leads the life of a very prosperous and successful Athenian gentleman.
“Why, then, Socrates, my habit is to rise from bed betimes, when I may still expect to find at home this, that, or the other friend whom I may wish to see. Then, if anything has to be done in town, I set off to transact the business and make that my walk; or if there is no business to transact in town, my serving boy leads on my horse to the farm; I follow, and so make the country road my walk, which suits my purpose quite as well or better, Socrates, perhaps, than pacing up and down the colonnade [in the city]. Then when I have reached the farm, where mayhap some of my men are planting trees, or breaking fallow, sowing, or getting in the crops, I inspect their various labors with an eye to every detail, and whenever I can improve upon the present system, I introduce reform.
“After this, usually I mount my horse and take a canter. I put him through his paces, suiting these, so far as possible, to those inevitable in war, — in other words, I avoid neither steep slope, nor sheer incline, neither trench nor runnel, only giving my uttermost heed the while so as not to lame my horse while exercising him. When that is over, the boy gives the horse a roll, and leads him homeward, taking at the same time from the country to town whatever we may chance to need. Meanwhile I am off for home, partly walking, partly running, and having reached home I take a bath and give myself a rub, — and then I breakfast, — a repast that leaves me neither hungry nor overfed, and will suffice me through the day.”