The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

47 The Natures of Men and Women
See 451c-457c. Throughout this passage, when Socrates refers to the “guardians,”
he means both the rulers and the auxiliaries from whom the rulers are to be
recruited. Should the wives of the guardians live lives separate from the lives of
their husbands? Should they stay at home and tend “the puppies” while their
husbands – the city’s “guard-dogs” – are out caring for “the flock”? Glaucon
answers no, that everything should be shared, and the women should serve as
guardians. Glaucon doesn’t explain why he answers in this way. In all likelihood,
this is not how his own mother behaved. Free women in Athens at the time lived
lives remarkably separate from those of their husbands. They managed the
household (particularly water-gathering, cooking, and weaving), directed the
household slaves, gave birth to and cared for the children, but did not shop in the
agora, did not attend theater productions, did not serve in the army, and did not
participate in political decision-making. So what is Glaucon thinking, giving
Socrates the nod and agreeing that these women should be, not just the wives of
the guardians, but guardians who are wives? It is not hard to imagine what he
might be thinking. The guardians are unusual persons with an unusual upbringing
and unusual concerns. They live separated from the others in the city, owning
nothing themselves but everything collectively. How could a guardian be married
to anyone but another guardian? Would the wives have private property but not
the husbands? How could a man keep the city as a whole his top priority and yet
be joined in marriage to a woman focussed on private concerns? Glaucon and
Socrates agree that women well suited to serve as auxiliaries should receive the
same upbringing and education in music, poetry, and physical training as the men,
and even exercise naked alongside them in the palestras. People may think this is
ridiculous, but that is only because, lacking wisdom, they overvalue what is
conventional; and it is foolish “to take seriously any standard of what is beautiful
other than what is good.” But is it in fact good for women to serve as guardians?
What of the principle that everyone in the city is to do the job for which he or she
is best suited by nature? Men and women are clearly different by nature. Does it
not follow that men and women should do different work? Socrates replies to this