Plutarch's Morals
therefore wished to get this woman into her power. But when she came
before her, and was evidently very handsome, and talked to her in a
noble and sensible manner, Olympias said, "Farewell to calumny! Your
charms lie in yourself."[169] So invincible are the charms of a lawful
wife to win her husband's affection by her virtuous character, bringing
to him in herself dowry, and family, and philtres, and even Aphrodite's
cestus.[170]
Sec. XXIV. Olympias, on another occasion, when a young courtier had married
a wife who was very handsome, but whose reputation was not very good,
remarked, "This fellow has no sense, or he would not have married with
his eyes." We ought neither to marry with our eyes, nor with our
fingers, as some do, who reckon up on their fingers what dowry the wife
will bring, not what sort of partner she will make.
Sec. XXV. It was advice of Socrates, that when young men looked at
themselves in the mirror, those who were not handsome should become so
through virtue, and those who were so should not by vice deform their
beauty. Good also is it for the matron, when she has the mirror in her
hands, if not handsome to say to herself, "What should I be, if I were
not virtuous?" and if handsome to say to herself, "How good it were to
add virtue to beauty!" for it is a feather in the cap of a woman not
handsome to be loved for herself and not for good looks.
Sec. XXVI. Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, sent some costly dresses and
necklaces to the daughters of Lysander, but he would not receive them,
and said, "These presents will bring my daughters more shame than
adornment." And Sophocles said still earlier than Lysander, "Your
madness of mind will not appear handsome, wretch, but most unhandsome."
For, as Crates says, "that is adornment which adorns," and that adorns a
woman that makes her more comely; and it is not gold or diamonds or
scarlet robes that make her so, but her dignity, her correct conduct,
and her modesty.
Sec. XXVII. Those who sacrifice to Hera as goddess of marriage,[171] do
not burn the gall with the other parts of the victim, but when they have
drawn it throw it away beside the altar: the lawgiver thus hinting that
gall and rage have no place in marriage. For the austerity of a matron
should be, like that of wine, wholesome and pleasant, not bitter as
aloes, or like a drug.
Sec. XXVIII. Plato advised Xenocrates, a man rather austere but in all
other respects a fine fellow, to sacrifice to the Graces. I think also
that a chaste wife needs the graces with her husband that, as Metrodorus
said, "she may live agreeably with him, and not be bad-tempered because
she is chaste." For neither should the frugal wife neglect neatness, nor
the virtuous one neglect to make herself attractive, for peevishness
makes a wife's good conduct disagreeable, as untidiness makes one
disgusted with simplicity.
Sec. XXIX. The wife who is afraid to laugh and jest with her husband, lest
she should appear bold and wanton, resembles one that will not anoint
herself with oil lest she should be thought to use cosmetics, and will
not wash her face lest she should be thought to paint. We see also in
the case of those poets and orators, that avoid a popular illiberal and
affected style, that they artificially endeavour to move and sway their
audience by the facts, and by a skilful arrangement of them, and by
their gestures. Consequently a matron will do well to avoid and
repudiate over-preciseness meretriciousness and pomposity, and to use
tact in her dealings with her husband in every-day life, accustoming him
to a combination of pleasure and decorum. But if a wife be by nature
austere and apathetic, and no lover of pleasure, the husband must make
the best of it, for, as Phocion said, when Antipater enjoined on him an
action neither honourable nor becoming, "You cannot have me as a friend
and flatterer both," so he must say to himself about his strict and
austere wife, "I cannot have in the same woman wife and mistress."
Sec. XXX. It was a custom among the Egyptian ladies not to wear shoes, that
they might stay at home all day and not go abroad. But most of our women
will only stay at home if you strip them of their golden shoes, and
bracelets, and shoe-buckles, and purple robes, and pearls.
Sec. XXXI. Theano, as she was putting on her shawl, displayed her arm, and
somebody observing, "What a handsome arm!" she replied, "But not
common." So ought not even the speech, any more than the arm, of a
chaste woman, to be common, for speech must be considered as it were the
exposing of the mind, especially in the presence of strangers. For in
words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the
speaker.
Sec. XXXII. Phidias made a statue of Aphrodite at Elis, with one foot on a
tortoise,[172] as a symbol that women should stay at home and be silent.
For the wife ought only to speak either to her husband, or by her
husband, not being vexed if, like a flute-player, she speaks more
decorously by another mouth-piece.
Sec. XXXIII. When rich men and kings honour philosophers, they really pay
homage to themselves as well; but when philosophers pay court to the
rich, they lower themselves without advancing their patrons. The same is
the case with women. If they submit themselves to their husbands they
receive praise, but if they desire to rule, they get less credit even
than the husbands who submit to their rule. But the husband ought to
rule his wife, not as a master does a chattel, but as the soul governs
the body, by sympathy and goodwill. As he ought to govern the body by
not being a slave to its pleasures and desires, so he ought to rule his
wife by cheerfulness and complaisance.
Sec. XXXIV. The philosophers tell us that some bodies are composed of
distinct parts, as a fleet or army; others of connected parts, as a
house or ship; others united and growing together, as every animal is.
The marriage of lovers is like this last class, that of those who marry
for dowry or children is like the second class, and that of those who
only sleep together is like the first class, who may be said to live in
the same house, but in no other sense to live together. But, just as
doctors tell us that liquids are the only things that thoroughly mix, so
in married people there must be a complete union of bodies, wealth,
friends, and relations. And thus the Roman legislator forbade married
people to exchange presents with one another, not that they should not
go shares with one another, but that they should consider everything as
common property.
Sec. XXXV. At Leptis, a town in Libya, it is the custom for the bride the
day after marriage to send to her mother-in-law's house for a pipkin,
who does not lend her one, but says she has not got one, that from the
first the daughter-in-law may know her mother-in-law's stepmotherly
mind,[173] that if afterwards she should be harsher still, she should be
prepared for it and not take it ill. Knowing this the wife ought to
guard against any cause of offence, for the bridegroom's mother is
jealous of his affection to his wife. But there is one cure for this
condition of mind, to conciliate privately the husband's affection, and
not to divert or diminish his love for his mother.
Sec. XXXVI. Mothers seem to love their sons best as able to help them, and
fathers their daughters as needing their help; perhaps also it is in
compliment to one another, that each prefers the other sex in their
children, and openly favours it. This, however, is a matter perhaps of
little importance. But it looks very nice in the wife to show greater
respect to her husband's parents than to her own, and if anything
unpleasant has happened to confide it to them rather than to her own
people. For trust begets trust,[174] and love love.
Sec. XXXVII. The generals of the Greeks in Cyrus's army ordered their men
to receive the enemy silently if they came up shouting, but if they came
up silently to rush out to meet them with a shout. So sensible wives, in
their husband's tantrums, are quiet when they storm, but if they are
silent and sullen talk them round and appease them.
Sec. XXXVIII. Rightly does Euripides[175] censure those who introduce the
lyre at wine-parties, for music ought to be called in to assuage anger
and grief, rather than to enervate the voluptuous still more than
before. Think, therefore, those in error who sleep together for
pleasure, but when they have any little difference with one another
sleep apart, and do not then more than at any other time invoke
Aphrodite, who is the best physician in such cases, as the poet, I ween,
teaches us, where he introduces Hera, saying:
"Their long-continued strife I now will end,
For to the bed of love I will them send."[176]
Sec. XXXIX. Everywhere and at all times should husband and wife avoid
giving one another cause of offence, but most especially when they are
in bed together. The woman who was in labour and had a bad time said to
those that urged her to go to bed, "How shall the bed cure me, which was
the very cause of this trouble?"[177] And those differences and quarrels
which the bed generates will not easily be put an end to at any other
time or place.
Sec. XL. Hermione seems to speak the truth where she says:
"The visits of bad women ruined me."[178]
But this case does not happen naturally, but only when dissension and
jealousy has made wives open not only their doors but their ears to such
women. But that is the very time when a sensible wife will shut her ears
more than at any other time, and be especially on her guard against
whisperers, that fire may not be added to fire,[179] and remember the
remark of Philip, who, when his friends tried to excite him against the
Greeks, on the ground that they were treated well and yet reviled him,
answered, "What will they do then, if I treat them ill?" Whenever, then,
calumniating women come and say to a wife, "How badly your husband
treats you, though a chaste and loving wife!" let her answer, "How would
he act then, if I were to begin to hate him and injure him?"
Sec. XLI. The master who saw his runaway slave a long time after he had
run away, and chased him, and came up with him just as he had got to the
mill, said to him, "In what more appropriate place could I have wished
to find you?"[180] So let the wife, who is jealous of her husband, and
on the point of writing a bill of divorce in her anger, say to herself,
"In what state would my rival be better pleased to see me in than this,
vexed and at variance with my husband, and on the point of abandoning
his house and bed?"
Sec. XLII. The Athenians have three sacred seedtimes: the first at Scirus,
as a remembrance of the original sowing of corn, the second at Rharia,
the third under Pelis, which is called Buzygium.[181] But a more sacred
seedtime than all these is the procreation of children, and therefore
Sophocles did well to call Aphrodite "fruitful Cytherea." Wherefore it
behoves both husband and wife to be most careful over this business, and
to abstain from lawless and unholy breaches of the marriage vow, and
from sowing in quarters where they desire no produce, or where, if any
produce should come, they would be ashamed of it and desire to conceal
it.[182]
Sec. XLIII. When Gorgias the Rhetorician recited his speech at Olympia
recommending harmony to the Greeks, Melanthius cried out, "He recommend
harmony to us! Why, he can't persuade his wife and maid to live in
harmony, though there are only three of them in the house!" Gorgias
belike had an intrigue with the maid, and his wife was jealous. He then
must have his own house in good order who undertakes to order the
affairs of his friends and the public, for any ill-doings on the part of