The Republic
two steps forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any connected
system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary
relations of the sciences to one another.
BOOK V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in
states, when Polemarchus—he was sitting a little farther from me than
Adeimantus—taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said
something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, ‘Shall we
let him off?’ ‘Certainly not,’ said Adeimantus, raising his voice.
Whom, I said, are you not going to let off? ‘You,’ he said. Why?
‘Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting
women and children, of whom you have slily disposed under the general
formula that friends have all things in common.’ And was I not right?
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but there are many sorts of communism or community,
and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you have
just heard, are resolved to have a further explanation.’ Thrasymachus
said, ‘Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to
hear you discourse?’ Yes, I said; but the discourse should be of a
reasonable length. Glaucon added, ‘Yes, Socrates, and there is reason
in spending the whole of life in such discussions; but pray, without
more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and how the
interval between birth and education is to be filled up.’ Well, I said,
the subject has several difficulties—What is possible? is the first
question. What is desirable? is the second. ‘Fear not,’ he replied,
‘for you are speaking among friends.’ That, I replied, is a sorry
consolation; I shall destroy my friends as well as myself. Not that I
mind a little innocent laughter; but he who kills the truth is a
murderer. ‘Then,’ said Glaucon, laughing, ‘in case you should murder us
we will acquit you beforehand, and you shall be held free from the
guilt of deceiving us.’
Socrates proceeds:—The guardians of our state are to be watch-dogs, as
we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes—we do
not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home
to look after their puppies. They have the same employments—the only
difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other
weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must
have the same education—they must be taught music and gymnastics, and
the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding
on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled
women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a
vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we
must not mind the wits; there was a time when they might have laughed
at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at last found out
that the exposure is better than the concealment of the person, and now
they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule.
The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or
partially to share in the employments of men. And here we may be
charged with inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we
started originally with the division of labour; and the diversity of
employments was based on the difference of natures. But is there no
difference between men and women? Nay, are they not wholly different?
THERE was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of
family relations. However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a
pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life; and we must try to
find a way of escape, if we can.
The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the
natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal
opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely
nominal and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are
opposed in a single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a
bald man is a cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is
such an inference erroneous? Simply because the opposition between them
is partial only, like the difference between a male physician and a
female physician, not running through the whole nature, like the
difference between a physician and a carpenter. And if the difference
of the sexes is only that the one beget and the other bear children,
this does not prove that they ought to have distinct educations.
Admitting that women differ from men in capacity, do not men equally
differ from one another? Has not nature scattered all the qualities
which our citizens require indifferently up and down among the two
sexes? and even in their peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though
in some cases superior to men, ridiculously enough surpassed by them?
Women are the same in kind as men, and have the same aptitude or want
of aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or war, but in a less degree. One
woman will be a good guardian, another not; and the good must be chosen
to be the colleagues of our guardians. If however their natures are the
same, the inference is that their education must also be the same;
there is no longer anything unnatural or impossible in a woman learning
music and gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be the
very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very
best women, and nothing can be more advantageous to the State than
this. Therefore let them strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in
the toils of war and in the defence of their country; he who laughs at
them is a fool for his pains.
The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men
and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is
rolling in—community of wives and children; is this either expedient or
possible? The expediency I do not doubt; I am not so sure of the
possibility. ‘Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be
entertained on both points.’ I meant to have escaped the trouble of
proving the first, but as you have detected the little stratagem I must
even submit. Only allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his
walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I will return to the
question of what can be.
In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones
where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as
legislator, have already selected the men; and now you shall select the
women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common
houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by
a necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be
allowed to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the
rulers are determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, holy
marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in
proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask
(as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not
take the greatest care in the mating? ‘Certainly.’ And there is no
reason to suppose that less care is required in the marriage of human
beings. But then our rulers must be skilful physicians of the State,
for they will often need a strong dose of falsehood in order to bring
about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired
with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one
must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will
be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated
at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and
bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the
rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and
that those of inferior breed are paired with inferiors—the latter will
ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers. And when
children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried
to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by
suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The
mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children; care
however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring;
and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of
watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants.
‘Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they
are having children.’ And quite right too, I said, that they should.
The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be
reckoned at thirty years—from twenty-five, when he has ‘passed the
point at which the speed of life is greatest,’ to fifty-five; and at
twenty years for a woman—from twenty to forty. Any one above or below
those ages who partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety;
also every one who forms a marriage connexion at other times without
the consent of the rulers. This latter regulation applies to those who
are within the specified ages, after which they may range at will,
provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents and children, or
of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not absolutely
prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. ‘But how shall we know the
degrees of affinity, when all things are common?’ The answer is, that
brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or nine months
after the espousals, and their parents those who are then espoused, and
every one will have many children and every child many parents.
Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous
and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a
State is unity; the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there
will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or
interests—where if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one
citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive; and the least hurt to the
little finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to
the soul. For the true State, like an individual, is injured as a whole
when any part is affected. Every State has subjects and rulers, who in
a democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters: but in our
State they are called saviours and allies; and the subjects who in
other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers and
paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in other
places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And whereas in other
States members of the same government regard one of their colleagues as
a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to
another; for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of
blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a
corresponding reality—brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from
infancy in the ears of children, will not be mere words. Then again the
citizens will have all things in common, in having common property they
will have common pleasures and pains.
Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or
lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which
they call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to
defend himself? The permission to strike when insulted will be an
‘antidote’ to the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But
no younger man will strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from
laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the
family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser
evils of life; there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid
household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the
citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned