Republic

Then is not the first thing that we have to agree upon with regard to these proposals whether they are possible or not? And we must throw open the debate[*](Cf. 607 D δοῖμεν . . . λόγον.) to anyone who wishes either in jest or earnest to raise the question whether female human nature is capable of sharing with the male all tasks or none at all, or some but not others,[*](Plato as elsewhere asks whether it is true of all, some, or none. So of the commingling of ideas in Sophist 251 D. Aristotle (Politics 1260 b 38) employs the same would-be exhaustive method.) and under which of these heads this business of war falls. Would not this be that best beginning which would naturally and proverbially lead to the best end[*](ἀρχόμενος . . . τελευτήσειν: an overlooked reference to a proverb also overlooked by commentators on Pindar, Pyth. i. 35. Cf. Pindar, fr. 108 A Loeb, Laws 775 E, Sophocles, fr. 831 (Pearson), Antiphon the Sophist, fr. 60 (Diels).)?Far the best, he said. Shall we then conduct the debate with ourselves in behalf of those others[*](This pleading the opponent’s case for him is common in Plato. Cf. especially the plea for Protagoras in Theaetetus 166-167.) so that the case of the other side may not be taken defenceless and go by default[*](Apparently a mixture of military and legal phraseology. Cf. ἐκπέρσῃ in Protagoras 340 A, Iliad v. 140 τὰ δ’ ἐρῆμα φοβεῖται, and the legal phrase ἐρήμην καταδιαιτᾶν or οφλεῖν.)? Nothing hinders, he said. Shall we say then in their behalf: There is no need, Socrates and Glaucon, of others disputing against you, for you yourselves at the beginning of the foundation of your city agreed[*](ὡμολογεῖτε: cf. 369 E f. For κατὰ φύσιν cf. 370 C and 456 C. The apparent emphasis of φύσις in this book is of little significance. Cf. Laws, passim.) that each one ought to mind as his own business the one thing for which he was fitted by nature? We did so agree, I think; certainly! Can it be denied then that there is by nature a great difference between men and women? Surely there is. Is it not fitting, then, that a different function should be appointed for each corresponding to this difference of nature? Certainly. How, then, can you deny that you are mistaken and in contradiction with yourselves when you turn around and affirm that the men and the women ought to do the same thing, though their natures are so far apart? Can you surprise me with an answer to that question? Not easily on this sudden challenge, he replied: but I will and do beg you to lend your voice to the plea in our behalf, whatever it may be. These and many similar difficulties, Glaucon, said I, I foresaw and feared, and so shrank from touching on the law concerning the getting and breeding of women and children. It does not seem an easy thing, by heaven, he said, no, by heaven. No, it is not, said I; but the fact is that whether one tumbles into a little diving-pool or plump into the great sea he swims all the same. By all means. Then we, too, must swim and try to escape out of the sea[*](Cf. the πέλαγος τῶν λόγων Protagoras 338 A. Similarly Sidney Smith: cut his cable, and spread his enormous canvas, and launch into the wide sea of reasoning eloquence.) of argument in the hope that either some dolphin[*](An allusion to the story of Arion and the dolphin in Herodotus i. 24, as ὑπολαβεῖν perhaps proves. For ἄπορον cf. 378 A.) will take us on its back or some other desperate rescue. So it seems, he said. Come then, consider, said I, if we can find a way out. We did agree that different natures should have differing pursuits and that the nature of men and women differ. And yet now we affirm that these differing natures should have the same pursuits. That is the indictment. It is.

What a grand[*](γενναία: often as here ironical in Plato. Cf. Sophist 231 B, where interpreters misunderstand it. But the new L. and S. is correct.) thing, Glaucon, said I, is the power of the art of contradiction[*](ἀντιλογικῆς: one of several designations for the eristic which Isocrates maliciously confounds with dialectic while Plato is careful to distinguish them. Cf. E. S. Thompson, The Meno of Plato , Excursus V., pp. 272 ff. and the introduction to E.H. Gifford’s Euthydemus, p. 42. Among the marks of eristic are the pusuit of merely verbal oppositions as here and Euthydemus 278 A, 301 B, Theaetetus 164 C; the neglect to distinguish and divide, Philebus 17 A, Phaedrus 265 E, 266 A, B; the failure to distinguish the hypothesis from its consequences, Phaedo 101 E, Parmenides 135-136.)! Why so? Because, said I, many appear to me to fall into it even against their wills, and to suppose that they are not wrangling but arguing, owing to their inability to apply the proper divisions and distinctions to the subject under consideration. They pursue purely verbal oppositions, practising eristic, not dialectic on one another. Yes, this does happen to many, he said; but does this observation apply to us too at present? Absolutely, said I; at any rate I am afraid that we are unawares[*](ἄκοντες is almost unconscious. Cf. Philebus 14 C.) slipping into contentiousness. In what way? The principle that natures not the same ought not to share in the same pursuits we are following up most manfully and eristically[*](Greek style often couples thus two adverbs, the second defining more specifically the first, and, as here and often in Plato and Aristophanes, with humorous or paradoxical effect. Cf. Aristophanes Knights 800 εὖ καὶ μιαρῶς. So Shakespeare well and chirurgeonly.) in the literal and verbal sense but we did not delay to consider at all what particular kind of diversity and identity[*](Cf. Sophist 256 A-B for the relativity of same and other.Politicus 292 C describes in different language the correct method.) of nature we had in mind and with reference to what we were trying to define it when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same. No, we didn’t consider that, he said. Wherefore, by the same token, I said, we might ask ourselves whether the natures of bald[*](For this humorously trivial illustration cf. Mill, Rep. Gov. chap. viii. p. 190: I have taken no account of difference of sex. I consider it to be as entirely irrelevant to political rights as difference in height, or in the color of the hair; and Mill’s disciple Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, i. 291: We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men.) and long-haired men are the same and not, rather, contrary. And, after agreeing that they were opposed, we might, if the bald cobbled, forbid the long-haired to do so, or vice versa. That would be ridiculous, he said. Would it be so, said I, for any other reason than that we did not then posit likeness and difference of nature in any and every sense, but were paying heed solely to the kind of diversity and homogeneity that was pertinent[*](Cf. Laches 190 D εἰς ὃ τείνειν δοκεῖ, Protagoras 345 B.) to the pursuits themselves? We meant, for example, that a man and a woman who have a physician’s[*](Adam makes difficulties, but Cf. Laws 963 A νοῦν . . . κυβερνητικὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν καὶ στρατηγικόν. The translation follows Hermann despite the objection that this reading forestalls the next sentence. Cf. Campbell ad loc. and Apelt, Woch. für klass. Phil ., 1903, p. 344.) mind have the same nature. Don’t you think so? I do. But that a man physician and a man carpenter have different natures? Certainly, I suppose. Similarly, then, said I, if it appears that the male and the female sex have distinct qualifications for any arts or pursuits, we shall affirm that they ought to be assigned respectively to each. But if it appears that they differ only in just this respect that the female bears and the male begets, we shall say that no proof has yet been produced that the woman differs from the man for our purposes, but we shall continue to think that our guardians and their wives ought to follow the same pursuits. And rightly, said he.