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Of women who were both virtuous and capable the orators tell us singularly little, and the probable reason is that such women in Athens had almost ceased to exist. Demosthenes and his contemporaries represent the last stage, when their country was already on the brink of political extinction, and the men of Athens had no ideals or examples of[201] womanly virtue to encourage them in their vain struggle against the great military power of the North. The lack of good women was a fatal disaster, but it was a disaster which the Athenians had brought upon themselves, and it led them straight to ruin.
As the political life of Athens ends with Demosthenes, so the creative force of the Greek genius ceases with Aristotle. There are some brilliant and many charming writers after his time, but they rely for all the originality of their thought on their great predecessors. Aristotle is the last of the creators: 'tout le reste, c'est littrature.'
Hence his unique importance in the history of human thought: not merely is he, perhaps, the greatest mind that Greece produced, but he has the advantage of coming last in the long line of thinkers on whom nearly all our intellectual life even now depends. In every department of civilised existence the influence of Aristotle must still be taken into account, and his judgment of women's position in society---a view sincerely held and on the whole most temperately expressed---has had far more effect on the world than have the idealist theories of Plato. His statement of the moral disabilities of women is to be found best in the Ethics; of their social disabilities in the treatise On Generation. The following quotations are from the English translations[203] of those works by Welldon, Jowett, and Platt.
To begin with the moral situation in the Ethics. Aristotle several times repeats the statement, common enough in ancient literature, though it seems now open to serious objection, that women are less temperate and continent in their desires than men. He does not blame them, but rather regards them with pity, 'for a woman is naturally in such matters weaker than a man: a man's love is passionate and open; women feel desire and are cunning.'[1] A line from The Beguiling of Zeus is quoted to support this view by the authority of Homer, and the philosopher himself agrees with the common Greek view that for a woman to wish to keep her husband to herself was a proof that she was both unreasonable and lascivious. So, in discussing certain morbid habits, such as the practice of biting one's nails or eating cinders, Aristotle has the significant remark: 'Now whenever nature is the cause of these habits nobody would call people who give way to them incontinent, any more than we should call women incontinent from being not males but females.'[2] It is, perhaps, this belief in the natural incapacity of women for virtue that is the cause of the depreciatory remarks concerning the essential excellence of an Athenian woman, 'bashful modesty.'
It would not be right to speak of a sense of shame as a virtue, for it is more like an emotion than a moral state: at least it may be defined as a kind of fear of ignominy, and in its effects it is analogous to the fear of dangers, for people blush when they are ashamed and turn pale when they are afraid of death. It is clear, then, that both affections are in a sense corporeal, and this seems to be the mark of an emotion rather than a moral state.[3]
Other slighter defects in the female character, as conceived by Aristotle, are hinted at in the remark: 'It is only exceedingly slavish people who eat and drink beyond the point of surfeit'; and in the well-known description of the 'Magnanimous Man,' Aristotle's ideal, who, unlike the shrill-voiced woman,
will have a deep voice and a sedate manner of speaking and be slow in his movements: he will not be in a hurry or emphatic in speech, for there are not many things he cares for, nor does he regard anything as very important, and these are the causes which make people speak in shrill tones and use rapid movements.[4]
These are some of the deficiencies in women: we have to go to the Rhetoric to get Aristotle's idea of their merits. The passage is significant:
, .[5]
The excellence of females is (a) physical, a large and beautiful body; (b) mental, virtuous moderation and a love---but not a sordid love---of work.
First, it will be seen, comes physical attractiveness. The excellent woman must be good-looking, and by 'good-looking' we mean tall and stout, for ethereal grace does not suit the harem-master's taste. Secondly, she will be temperate in her desires: the word 'Sophrosyne,' 'virtuous moderation,' is the chief virtue in a woman: it is the faculty of 'doing without'---love, food, pleasure, consideration, etc.---and the Greeks, unlike the Romans, really did admire this passive merit even in men. Thirdly comes industry, with the restriction that a woman must not be a slave to work: she has other even more important duties---her master's pleasure, for example---and work must not be allowed to interfere unduly. In his conception of female virtue Aristotle has advanced somewhat from Pericles' negative ideal, but he has not got very far.
The most instructive passages, however, in the Ethics are in the Eighth Book, where friendship is considered.
There is another kind of friendship or love depending upon superiority, the friendship or love of a father for a son, of a husband for a wife, of a ruler for a subject. These friendships are of different sorts: the love of a husband for a wife is not the same as that of wife for a husband. There is a different virtue in each, a different function, and different motives. It follows that the services rendered by each party to the other are not the same, nor is it right to expect they should be. In all such friendships as depend upon the principle of[206] superiority, the affection should be proportionate to the superiority; i.e., the better or the more useful party, or whoever may be the superior, should receive more affection than he gives.
This may sound to us humorous, but Aristotle is quite serious: it is part of his great doctrine of 'proportional equality'; and his only doubt is as to which adjective is most appropriate to man, 'better,' or 'more useful,' or simply 'superior.'[6] Friendship leads to a discussion of domestic associations, and while the rule of a slave-master seems a right form of despotism, the association of husband and wife is judged to be 'aristocratical,' for the husband's rule depends upon merit and is confined to its proper sphere. He assigns to the wife all that suitably belongs to her. If the husband is lord of everything, he changes the association to an 'oligarchy'; for then he acts unfairly and not in virtue of his superior merit. 'Sometimes the wife rules as being an heiress, but such rule is not based upon merit.'[7]
