Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
After the ancestral rite by which the priestess of Demeter joined you together as you were being shut in the bridal chamber, I think that a discourse, too, taking hold of you together and joining in your wedding-song, might do something useful and be in tune with the custom. For among musicians they used to call one of the flute-tunes the "horse-goad," a melody that, it seems, gave the horses an impulse rousing them toward mating; but in philosophy,
though there are many fine discourses available, none deserves study less than this nuptial one, which, singing its charm over those who are coming together into a partnership of life, renders them gentle and tractable toward one another. So then, drawing together the main points of what you have often heard while being brought up in philosophy, arranged under a few brief comparisons so that they may be more easily remembered, I send you both a gift held in common, praying that Aphrodite may be attended by the Muses
and work together with her, so that neither lyre nor lyre-string may be more closely fitted to them than the harmony that concerns marriage and household, achieved through reason and concord: for this too belongs to philosophy. Indeed the ancients set up Hermes beside Aphrodite, implying that the pleasure that belongs to marriage stands most of all in need of reason; and they set up Persuasion, too, and the Graces beside her, so that by persuading one another husband and wife may obtain from each other
what they wish, without fighting or contentiousness. Solon bade the bride, on lying down beside the bridegroom, first nibble a quince, hinting, it seems, that the charm proceeding from mouth and voice should first be harmonious and sweet. In Boeotia they veil the bride and crown her with a wreath of asparagus-thorn; for that plant yields the sweetest fruit from the roughest and thorniest bush, and likewise the bride, to the husband who does not flee or shrink in irritation from
her first show of harshness, will in time provide a tame and sweet life together. Those who cannot endure the first differences with young girls behave no differently from those who, because of the sourness of the unripe grape, give up the ripe cluster to others. And many newly married women, vexed by their husbands' first advances, suffer a fate like that of people who put up with the sting of the bee but then let go the
honeycomb. It is above all at the beginning that married people must guard against quarrels and clashes, seeing that even pieces of furniture that have been joined together are, at first, easily pulled apart by any chance pretext, but once time has let the joints set firm, they are with difficulty separated even by fire and iron. Just as fire is kindled easily in chaff, in a lamp-wick, and in hare's
fur, but is quenched all the sooner unless it takes hold of some other material able both to contain and to feed it, so the sharp passion for the newly married, kindled from the body and from youthful bloom, must not be counted as lasting or secure unless, settling upon character and taking hold of the rational faculty, it acquires a living disposition. The hunting of fish by means of drugs quickly and easily catches and takes
the fish, but renders it inedible and worthless: just so, women who by contriving certain love-charms and sorceries master their husbands through pleasure find themselves living with men who are senseless, foolish, and corrupted. Even Circe got no benefit from the men she had drugged, nor did she make any use at all of them once they had become swine and asses; it was Odysseus, who kept his wits and lived with her prudently, whom she came to love above all. Women who would rather
rule over senseless men than obey sensible ones are like people on a road who would rather guide the blind than follow and be guided by those who see and know the way. They refuse to believe that Pasiphaë, though wife to a king, fell in love with a bull, and yet they can see that some women, finding austere and self-controlled men burdensome, take more pleasure in the company of men compounded of licentiousness and love of pleasure, as if they were dogs or goats. Those who, out of weakness or
softness, teach the very horses they mount to crouch down and submit to them are like some men who, having taken wives of noble birth or wealth, do not make themselves better but instead clip their wives' wings, so as to rule more easily over women who have been humbled. One ought, rather, while preserving the horse's stature, to use the bit that suits the wife's dignity. When the moon is far from the sun we see her full and shining bright, but she grows faint
and hides herself when she comes near him: the virtuous woman, on the contrary, ought to be seen most when she is with her husband, and to keep to the house and stay out of sight when he is away. Herodotus was not right to say that a woman puts off her modesty along with her tunic; on the contrary, the virtuous woman puts modesty on instead, and husband and wife use their utmost mutual reverence as the token of their utmost mutual love. Just as
when two notes are struck together in concord, it is the deeper note that carries the melody, so too every action in a well-ordered household is performed by both partners in agreement, but it shows forth the husband's leadership and initiative. The Sun once defeated the North Wind. For when the wind tried by force to strip the man of his cloak and blew hard and cold, the man only wrapped his garment more tightly and held his covering close about him; but when
the sun, after the wind had ceased, grew warm and then scorching, the man, growing heated and then overheated, took off not only his cloak but his tunic as well. This is what most wives do: when their husbands try by force to strip away their luxury and extravagance, they fight back and grow angry; but if they are persuaded through reasoning, they lay these things aside gently and become moderate. Cato expelled from the Senate a man who had kissed his own wife in his daughter's presence. This,
perhaps, was rather too severe; but if it is shameful, as indeed it is, for husband and wife to embrace and kiss and caress one another in the presence of others, is it not more shameful still to abuse and quarrel with one another in the presence of others? Ought they not rather to keep their tender exchanges and endearments private toward the wife, while reserving admonition, reproach, and plain speaking for open display? Just as a mirror set with gold
and precious stones is of no use at all if it does not show a true likeness, so too there is no benefit in a rich wife unless she makes her life match her husband's and her character harmonize with his. If, when a man is glad, the mirror gives back a sullen image, and when he is vexed and scowling it gives back a cheerful, grinning one, it is faulty and worthless. In just the same way a wife is faulty and ill-timed who acts sullen
when her husband is in a mood to play and be affectionate, and who plays and laughs when he is being serious: the one betrays unpleasantness, the other indifference. Just as geometers say that lines and surfaces do not move on their own but move together with the bodies they belong to, so too a wife ought to have no feeling of her own apart from her husband, but should share with him in seriousness and play, in thoughtfulness
and laughter. Men who do not like seeing their wives eat with them teach them to gorge themselves once they are alone. In the same way, husbands who do not spend their time cheerfully with their wives, nor share in play and laughter with them, teach their wives to seek their own private pleasures apart from them. Among the kings of the Persians, their lawful wives sit beside them at dinner and share the feast; but when the kings wish to be merry and drink, they send these wives away, and
call in the singing-girls and concubines instead — and in this they do rightly, because they do not allow their lawful wives to share in their licentiousness and drunken excess. So if a private citizen, lacking self-control in matters of pleasure and ill-bred, does something wrong with a courtesan or a servant-girl, his wife ought not to be indignant or angry, but should reason that it is out of respect for her that he shares his drunken excess, licentiousness, and outrage with another woman. Kings
who love music make many men musicians; those who love learning, men of letters; those who love athletics, athletes. In just the same way, a husband devoted to the body makes his wife a woman devoted to adorning herself, one devoted to pleasure makes her a courtesan-like and licentious woman, while one devoted to goodness and beauty of character makes her modest and well-ordered. A Spartan girl, when someone asked whether she had already gone to a man, replied, "Not I, but he has come to me." This, I think,
is the proper way for the mistress of the household to behave: neither to avoid nor to be vexed at such advances when her husband initiates them, nor to take the initiative herself; for the one is the mark of a courtesan and forward, the other of a haughty and unaffectionate woman. A wife ought not to acquire friends of her own, but should make use of those her husband has in common with her; and the gods are the first and greatest of friends. It is therefore fitting that a wife should worship and recognize only those gods her husband believes in, and
should keep her outer door closed to strange rites and foreign superstitions; for no god takes pleasure in sacred rites performed in secret and stealth by a woman. Plato says that a city is happy and blessed in which the words "mine" and "not mine" are least heard, because the citizens, so far as possible, treat as common whatever is worth caring about; and much more should such language be
banished from marriage. Yet just as physicians say that blows on the left side are felt in sensation on the right, so it is good for the wife to share sympathetically in her husband's concerns and the husband in his wife's, so that, just as ropes gain strength from one another through their interweaving, the partnership may be preserved through the goodwill each returns to the other. For indeed
nature, by mingling us through our bodies, takes a part from each and blends it, so as to render the offspring common to both, in such a way that neither parent can mark off or distinguish which part is one's own and which another's. Such, then, is also the kind of partnership in property that is most fitting for married people, who ought to pour everything together into one estate and mix it so thoroughly that they consider none of it their own part and
none another's, but all of it their own and none belonging to another. For just as we call a mixture wine even though it contains more water, so too the estate and the household ought to be spoken of as the husband's, even if the wife has contributed the greater share. Helen was a lover of wealth, Paris a lover of pleasure; Odysseus was prudent, Penelope virtuous. That is why the marriage of the latter pair was blessed and enviable, while that of the former brought upon Greeks and barbarians alike an Iliad
of troubles. A Roman, being reproached by his friends because he had divorced a wife who was virtuous, wealthy, and beautiful, held out his shoe to them and said, "This too is handsome to look at and new, but no one knows where it pinches me." A wife, then, ought to be trusted not on account of her dowry, her family, or her beauty, but in those respects by which she touches her husband most nearly —
in companionship, character, and mutual accommodation — she ought to make these qualities not harsh or distressing day by day but harmonious, painless, and endearing. For just as physicians fear more the fevers that arise from obscure causes and gather little by little than those that have obvious and great causes, so too the small, continual, everyday frictions between wife and husband, unnoticed by most people, do more
to separate and ruin their life together. King Philip fell in love with a Thessalian woman who was accused of having bewitched him with drugs. Olympias therefore was eager to get the woman into her power; but when the woman came into her presence and appeared attractive in looks and spoke to her neither basely nor without intelligence, Olympias said, "Away with the slanders — you carry your
drugs in yourself." An invincible thing indeed a wedded and lawful wife becomes, if, having placed everything in herself — dowry, family, drugs, and the very girdle of Aphrodite — she wins her husband's goodwill through character and virtue. Again, when a certain young courtier had married a beautiful woman of bad reputation, Olympias said, "This man has no judgment: otherwise he would not have
married with his eyes." One ought not to marry with the eyes, nor with the fingers either, as some do who reckon up how much a woman brings and take her without judging how she will live together with them. Socrates used to urge young men who looked at themselves in mirrors — those who were ugly, to correct the defect through virtue, and those who were handsome, not to disgrace their good looks by baseness of character. It is good, likewise, for the mistress of the household, whenever she holds the mirror in her
hands, to say to herself, the plain one, "What then, if I do not become virtuous?" and the beautiful one, "What then, if I too become virtuous?" For it is a greater distinction for a plain woman to be loved for her character than for her beauty. The Sicilian tyrant sent garments and costly jewelry to the daughters of Lysander, but Lysander refused them, saying, "These
ornaments will disgrace my daughters rather than adorn them." Before Lysander, Sophocles had said the same thing: "Not ornament, no, unhappy one, but rather disorder would your finery seem, and the wantonness of your mind." For ornament, as Crates used to say, "is what brings order" — and what brings order is what makes a woman more orderly. It is not gold, nor emerald, nor scarlet that makes her such, but whatever
clothes her with an air of dignity, good order, and modesty. Those who sacrifice to Hera on the occasion of a wedding do not burn the gall along with the other parts of the offering, but remove it and cast it away beside the altar, the lawgiver hinting thereby that gall, that is, anger, must never have a place in marriage. For the mistress of the household ought to be like wine: her austerity should be beneficial and pleasant, not bitter like aloes nor medicinal. Plato used to urge
Xenocrates, who was rather too grave in character, though good and noble in every other respect, to sacrifice to the Graces. I think, too, that the virtuous wife has especial need of graciousness toward her husband, so that, as Metrodorus used to say, "he may live with her happily and not be resentful because she is virtuous." For neither should the plain woman neglect cleanliness, nor should the wife devoted to her husband neglect affectionate warmth; for harshness makes a wife's
good order unpleasant, just as slovenliness makes simplicity unattractive. The woman who is afraid to laugh with her husband or to joke with him, for fear of seeming bold and licentious, is no different from one who, so as not to seem to perfume her hair, refuses even to have it anointed, and who, so as not to seem to rouge her face, refuses even to wash it. We see also that poets and orators
who avoid what is vulgar, ignoble, and affected in their diction take pains instead to move and stir their listener by their subject matter, their arrangement, and their characterization. In the same way the mistress of the household, while she does well to avoid and refuse everything excessive, courtesan-like, and theatrical, ought rather to cultivate skill in the graces of character and daily life toward her husband, accustoming him to what is good along with pleasure. But if a woman happens by nature to be
...it was not possible for them to spend the whole day at home. Take away from most women their gilded sandals, bracelets, anklets, purple, and pearls, and they stay indoors. Theano let her arm show as she wrapped her cloak around her. When someone said, "What a lovely forearm," she replied, "But not for the public." Not only the forearm but the speech of a modest woman ought not to be public,
and she should be as ashamed of exposing her voice to outsiders as of exposing her body, and guard against it; for in her speaking one can see her feeling, character, and disposition. Phidias made the Aphrodite of the Eleans standing on a tortoise, a symbol for women of staying at home and of silence. For a woman ought to speak either to her husband or through her husband, and not be vexed if, like a flute-player,
she sounds more dignified through another's mouthpiece. Rich men and kings, by honoring philosophers, adorn both themselves and those philosophers, but philosophers who court the rich do not make the rich famous; they only make themselves less esteemed. The same thing happens with women: by submitting themselves to their husbands they are praised, but those who wish to rule rather than be ruled behave more disgracefully than the ruled. A husband should rule his wife
not as a master rules a possession, but as the soul rules the body, sympathizing with it and growing together with it through goodwill. Just as one can care for the body without being enslaved to its pleasures and desires, so one can govern a wife while delighting and gratifying her. Of bodies, the philosophers say, some are made of separate parts, like a fleet or an army; others are made of joined parts, like a house or
a ship; and others are unified and organically grown together, as each living creature is. So too, roughly speaking, is marriage: that of people in love is unified and organic; that of people marrying for a dowry or for children is made of joined parts; that of people who do not share a bed is made of separate parts — people one might consider to be living in the same house rather than sharing a life together. And just as the natural philosophers say of liquids
that a thorough blending takes place, so with married people bodies, property, friends, and relations should all be mingled together through one another. Indeed the Roman lawgiver forbade married couples from giving and receiving gifts from one another, not so that they would share in nothing, but so that they would regard everything as held in common. In Leptis, a city of Libya, it is traditional that on the day after the wedding
the bride sends to the bridegroom's mother to ask for a cooking-pot; and the mother does not give it, and says she has none — so that the bride, understanding from the very start the proverbial harshness of mothers-in-law, will not be angry or resentful if something rougher happens later. The wife ought to recognize this and treat the pretext accordingly: it is a kind of jealousy the mother feels over the goodwill shown to her son. There is one cure for
this feeling: to win the husband's goodwill for herself privately, without drawing it away from his mother or diminishing it. Mothers seem to love their sons more, since their sons are able to help them, while fathers love their daughters more, since daughters need their fathers' help; but perhaps also, out of mutual regard for one another, each spouse wishes to show the greater affection for what belongs to the other, embracing and
showing love for it more openly. This perhaps makes no real difference; but here is something graceful: if the wife, in showing honor, inclines rather toward her husband's parents than her own, and is seen to do so, and if something grieves her, brings it to them rather than concealing it from her own parents. For to trust someone makes one seem trusted in turn, and to love makes one seem loved. The generals accompanying Cyrus instructed
the Greeks that if the enemy advanced with shouting, they should receive them in silence, but if the enemy fell silent, they should charge them with a shout. Sensible women, when their husbands are shouting in anger, keep quiet, but when the men fall silent, speak to them and soothe them with comforting words. Euripides is right to blame those who play the lyre over wine, for music ought rather to be summoned to anger and grief
than added to those who are already enjoying pleasure. So you should consider that those who go to bed together for pleasure's sake do no wrong, but that when they are caught up in some anger or dispute, they should rest apart and, above all, not call upon Aphrodite at such a time — she is the best physician for troubles of that sort. As the poet somewhere teaches, making Hera say,
not "with adornment," but that she "will resolve their bitter quarrels by bringing them to bed to be joined in love." One must always and everywhere avoid the husband giving offense to the wife or the wife to the husband, and must guard against this most of all when resting and sleeping together. The woman in labor, in her distress, said to those laying her down, "How
could the bed cure what I suffered because of the bed?" The quarrels, abuse, and anger that the bed produces are not easily dissolved in another place or at another time. Hermione seems to speak a certain truth when she says, "It was the visits of wicked women that ruined me." This does not happen simply on its own, but when disagreements and jealousies toward husbands
open to such women not only their doors but also their ears. Then, above all, the sensible wife must shut her ears and guard against whispering gossip, lest fire be added to fire, and she should keep ready Philip's saying. For it is said that when he was provoked by his friends against the Greeks, on the ground that they were treated well and yet spoke ill of him, he said,
"What then, if we should also treat them badly?" So whenever slanderers say, "Your husband wrongs you though you love him and are faithful," you should answer, "What then, if I too should begin to hate him and wrong him?" The man who, after a long time, caught sight of his runaway slave and was chasing him, and when the slave got ahead of him and took refuge in a mill, said, "Where else
would I rather have found you than here?" So a wife who out of jealousy writes a bill of divorce and is filled with resentment should say to herself, "Where would the woman who is jealous of me be more pleased to see me, and doing what, than grieving and quarreling with my husband and abandoning my very house and bedroom?" The Athenians hold three sacred plowings: the first at Skiron, in memory of the oldest of
sowings; the second in the Rharian field; the third below the city, at the place called the Bouzygion. Of all these the most sacred is the marital sowing and plowing for the begetting of children. Sophocles rightly called Aphrodite "fruitful Cytherea." For this reason husband and wife should, above all, approach this act with reverence, keeping themselves pure and unpolluted by unholy and unlawful relations with others, and not
sow seed from which they wish nothing to grow for themselves — yet if fruit does come of it, they are ashamed and hide it. When the orator Gorgias delivered a speech at Olympia on concord among the Greeks, Melanthius said, "This man is advising us about concord, when he has not persuaded himself, his wife, and his maidservant — three people — to live in concord with one another." For it seems there was some passion of
Gorgias's, and jealousy on his wife's part toward the little maidservant. A household, then, must be well harmonized by the man who intends to bring city, marketplace, and friends into harmony; for the failings of women, or against women, tend to escape most people's notice more than other faults do. If, just as they say a cat is thrown into confusion and driven wild by the smell of perfumes, so
women too became savage and deranged from perfumes, it would be terrible for men not to abstain from perfume, but instead, for the sake of their own brief pleasure, to look on unconcerned while women were harmed so badly. Since, then, women suffer these things not because men wear perfume but because men consort with other women, it is unjust for the sake of a small pleasure to cause women such great grief and turmoil, and not, just as
bees are said to dislike and attack men who have been with women, so approach one's own wife pure and undefiled by intercourse with others. Those who approach elephants do not wear bright clothing, nor do those who approach bulls wear scarlet cloaks, for these animals are driven especially wild by such colors; and they say tigers, when surrounded by drumming, go utterly frantic and tear themselves apart. Since, then, among men too, some are upset at the sight of scarlet and purple garments, while others
are annoyed by cymbals and drums, what is so terrible about women abstaining from such things and not disturbing or provoking their husbands, but living together with them in calm and gentleness? A certain woman, when Philip was dragging her along against her will, said, "Let me go — every woman is the same once the lamp is taken away." This was well said with reference to adulterers and the unchaste, but the wedded wife ought,
above all, once the light is removed, not to be the same as ordinary women, but even when her body cannot be seen, to make visible her modesty and her own constancy and devotion toward her husband. Plato urged the old, more than the young, "to be ashamed before the young," so that the young in turn might feel modesty before them; for "where old men are shameless," no shame or restraint at all is instilled
in the young. Remembering this, a husband ought to feel shame before no one more than before his wife, since the bedroom will become for her a school of either good order or license. The man who himself enjoys the same pleasures while turning his wife away from them is no different from one who commands his wife to fight the very enemies to whom he himself has surrendered. As for love of adornment — you, Eurydice, should read
what Timoxena wrote to Aristylla, and try to keep it always in mind. And you, Pollianus, must not suppose that your wife will refrain from excess and extravagance if she sees that you do not despise these things in other contexts, but rather delight in gilded drinking-cups, paintings on the walls of rooms, and the finery of mules and horse-trappings. For it is not possible to banish extravagance from the women's quarters when it is roaming about in the very midst of the men's quarters. And you,
since you are now of an age to practice philosophy, should adorn your character with what is said with demonstration and reasoned argument, associating and keeping company with those who do you good; and for your wife, gathering what is useful from every quarter, like the bees, and carrying it within yourself, share it with her and talk it over with her, making the best of your discussions her familiar friends. For though "father" you are to her, and "revered mother,"
and "brother" too, it is no less impressive to hear a wedded wife say, "Husband, but you are to me also" teacher and philosopher and instructor in all that is noblest and most divine. Such studies draw women away from base pursuits before anything else: for a woman learning geometry will be ashamed to dance, and one charmed by the words of Plato and Xenophon will not open herself to magic incantations. And if someone
professes to be able to pull down the moon, she will laugh at the ignorance and foolishness of the women who believe such things, since she is not unschooled in astronomy and has heard of Aglaonice, daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly, who, being skilled in the eclipses of the full moon and knowing in advance the time when the moon would be caught by the earth's shadow, deceived the women and persuaded them that she herself was pulling down the moon.
For no woman is ever said to have produced a child without union with a man, yet the shapeless, fleshlike growths that take form within a woman from corruption are called moles. This is exactly what must be guarded against arising in women's souls. For if they do not receive the seeds of worthy discourse, nor share in learning with their husbands, then left to themselves they conceive many absurd and base intentions
and passions on their own. So you, Eurydice, above all try to keep company with the sayings of the wise and good, and always to have on your lips those words which, even as a girl, you used to take up from us, so that you may delight your husband and be admired by other women, adorned in this way exceptionally and with dignity, and at no cost at all. For the pearls of this rich woman here
and the silks of that foreign woman there cannot be acquired or worn without buying them at great expense; but the adornments of Theano, Cleobulina, Gorgo the wife of Leonidas, Timocleia the sister of Theagenes, Claudia of old, and Cornelia the daughter of Scipio, and all the other women who have been admired and celebrated — these one may wear as a dowry, and be adorned with them gloriously while
living both a happy and a blessed life. For if Sappho, because of the beauty of her lyric composition, was proud enough to write to a certain rich woman, "You will lie dead, and no memory of you will remain, for you have no share in the roses of Pieria," how much more will it be possible for you to be proud of yourself, and illustrious, if you have a share not of roses but of the very fruits
that the Muses bring and bestow on those who admire learning and philosophy?