Page 29 of 38
It seems to Plato that it is both practicable and desirable that men and women should have the same training and the same duties; not, indeed, all men and all women, for Plato's is an aristocratic State and he is chiefly legislating for his guardian class,[173] but at least the better men and the better women. So he does not shrink from absolute similarity of education:
Then the wives of our guardians must strip for their exercises, inasmuch as they will put on virtue instead of raiment, and must bear their part in war and the other duties comprised in the guardianship of the State, and must engage in no other occupations: though of these tasks the lighter parts must be given to the women rather than to the men, in consideration of the weakness of their sex. But as for the man who laughs at the idea of undressed women going through gymnastic exercises, as a means of realising what is most perfect, his ridicule is but 'unripe fruit plucked from the tree of wisdom' and he knows not, to all appearance, what he is laughing at or what he is doing: for it is, and ever will be, a most excellent maxim, that the useful is noble and the hurtful base.
Thus the first wave of the discussion is successfully surmounted: the second and more dangerous is the proposition that wives and children shall be held in common. The company refuse to admit without discussion that it is either desirable or practicable, and a double line of argument is used. If men and women are educated and live together, human nature will soon bring about even closer associations. Any irregular union would be an offence against the State, and it is of the first importance to science that the best citizens should have the largest number of children. Therefore marriages and births must[174] be a matter of State regulation, and any possible discontent must be averted by an elaborate system of pretence. The details are fixed:
'As fast as the children are born they will be received by officers appointed for the purpose, whether men or women, or both: for I presume that the State offices also will be held in common both by men and women.'
'They will.'
'Well, these officers, I suppose, will take the children of good parents and place them in the general nursery under the charge of certain nurses, living apart in a particular quarter of the city; while the issue of inferior parents, and all imperfect children that are born to the others, will be concealed, as is fitting, in some mysterious and unknown hiding-place.'
'Yes, if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure.'
'And will not these same officers have to superintend the rearing of the children, bringing the mothers to the nursery when their breasts are full, but taking every precaution that no mother shall know her own child, and providing other women that have milk, if the mothers have not enough: and must they not take care to limit the time during which the mothers are to suckle the children, committing the task of sitting up at night, and other troubles incident to infancy, to nurses and attendants?'
'You make child-bearing a very easy business for the wives of the guardians.'
'Yes, and so it ought to be.'
The second argument may be briefly stated. In the ideal State there will be no such thing as private property: a man will not have a house or dogs of his own, therefore (for our philosopher again seems[175] hardly to realise that the analogy between house and wife is not quite exact), he will not have a wife and children of his own. The whole subject concludes with a return to the original topic of equality of opportunity in these terms:
'Then you concede the principle that the women are to be put upon the same footing as the men, according to our description, in education, in bearing children, and in watching over the other citizens, and that whether they remain at home or are sent into the field, they are to share the duties of guardianship with the men, and join with them in the chase like dogs, and have everything in common with them so far as it is at all possible, and that in so doing they will be following the most desirable course and not violating the natural relation which ought to govern the mutual fellowship of the sexes?'
'I do concede all this,' he replied.
'Then does it not remain for us,' I proceeded, 'to determine whether this community can possibly subsist among men as it can among other animals, and what are the conditions of its possibility?'
'You have anticipated me in a suggestion I was about to make.'
'As for their warlike operations, I suppose it is easy to see how they will be conducted.'
'How?' he asked.
'Why, both sexes will take the field together and they will also carry with them such of their children as are strong enough, in order that, like the children of all other craftsmen, they may be spectators of those occupations in which, when grown up, they will themselves be engaged: and they will require them, besides looking on, to act as servants and attendants in all the[176] duties of war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers.'
It will be noticed that Plato does not shrink from the question of military service for women. If a man is unwilling or unable to defend his country, he certainly has no claim to citizen rights, nor has a woman. It may reasonably be argued that the qualification for a vote is neither property nor sex, but the proof that the individual has passed through the period of training necessary to qualify him as a defender of the fatherland. The qualities necessary for a soldier are three: courage, strength, and skill. No one acquainted with women can doubt that they possess the first: in the passive courage which a modern soldier chiefly needs it is possible that women have a slight advantage over men, and they usually recover more quickly from wounds. The strength that is required in modern warfare is chiefly endurance: the power to stand exposure to the weather, insufficient food, lack of sleep and comfort; marching capacity. No one who knows the vagabonds and strollers of our English roads will say that women are not capable of supporting all these hardships as well as men. The female tramp is every whit as sturdy and hardy as her male companion. Finally, the skill to handle a gun and the power of shooting straight are matters almost entirely of training: the natural qualities, a steady hand and[177] a sharp eye, that help such a training are by no means predominantly male characteristics.
Plato for his part is very insistent on this question, and returns to it several times in the Laws. The State is to maintain schools, where the art of war in all its branches shall be taught to males and females alike. Gymnastics and horsemanship are as suitable to women as to men. Boys and girls together must learn the use of the bow, the javelin, and the sling, and in every well-ordered community at least one day a month shall be set aside for warlike exercise, in which men, women and children shall take part. Female education will include a definite military training: the girls will learn how to use their weapons and to move about lightly in armour; the grown woman will study evolutions and tactics. Finally, in all public festivals and competitions the unmarried girls shall compete with the youths in running and in contests in armour.
It is on this point of military training, perhaps, that Plato stands apart from modern sentiment: most of his other ideals of feminine education are in process of being realised, even that which allowed the educated woman to become herself a teacher, and rank with male colleagues. In the inner circle of the Academy, the first University College of which we know, men and women met on equal terms, and shared responsibilities and privileges. The names[178] of two such women (neither of them, be it noted, Athenians) are recorded for us by Dicarchus and Lastheneia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius, 'who even used to wear male attire,' hold out their hands across the centuries to Mrs. Bryant and Miss Busk.
