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Gender, Politics, and Economics: From Plato’s Utopianism to Cynic Radicalism

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Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy

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Abstract

From Plato to the Hellenistic and Roman thinkers, family and marriage are a reoccurring topic of philosophical reflection. This chapter investigates the roles of marriage in Plato’s Republic, Ancient theory of economics, and Cynic philosophy. This chapter provides an important background for understanding the Stoic proposal of “keeping women in common” as well as their views on marriage and family.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cynic treatises have not survived, and we have to rely on Ancient doxographers and other authors. Whether or not these give a reliable account of the Cynic doctrines is impossible to ascertain from the available textual evidence. On the sources on Cynic philosophy as well as the historical background, see John Moles 2000: 415–423.

  2. 2.

    This reading is in line with the idea Friedrich Engels puts forward in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884). He discusses monogamy as one instance of private ownership that leads to the oppression of women. Cf. Kathy L. Gaca, who compares Plato and Engels (2003: 44–45). Read from this angle, Plato’s proposal in Republic would at least seem to imply the end of relationships in which one person owns another as a wife.

  3. 3.

    Gregory Vlastos maintains that “the decisive reason for the feminism of Book V” is Plato’s “theory of political justice” (1994: 21–22). On the contrary view concerning the feminism of Republic, see Julia Annas (1996). According to her, Plato’s “arguments are unacceptable to a feminist, and the proposals made in Republic V are irrelevant to the contemporary debate.” (1996: 3).

  4. 4.

    Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach provides a detailed philosophical theory of what “producing equality” entails (Nussbaum 2000: 1–33).

  5. 5.

    Here, my reading agrees with Julia Annas who suggests that Plato was not interested in gender equality in the first place (1996: 7–8).

  6. 6.

    The work Economics is included in the Aristotelian corpus, although it is dubious whether the author was one of Aristotle’s students. The question concerning the authenticity of the work is not relevant for my discussion here. My main aim is to draw attention to certain ideas expressed in Ancient economics which is useful for understanding both the Platonic and the Stoic positions on private households. However, for the sake of convenience, I refer to this work as “Aristotelian” or “Pseudo-Aristotelian” hereafter in this chapter.

  7. 7.

    Aristotle did not undervalue housekeeping as such, however, and compares nature to a good housekeeper, for example. For a discussion on this, see Mariska Leunissen (2010).

  8. 8.

    Aristotle even states that there is a natural friendship between husband and wife (EN 1162a16). This is a remarkable claim, given the high rank friendship receives in his conception of good life in EN. Cf. Juha Sihvola 2002: 214–215.

  9. 9.

    John Moles further suggests that the Cynic upheaval of traditional marriage would entail that “incest is permissible (as sanctioned by the ‘natural’ behavior of animals)”(2000: 430). The idea of “permissibility of incest” reoccurs in early Stoicism, and I shall discuss in Sect. 12.4 how we should understand this rather questionable-sounding idea.

  10. 10.

    A reference to Euripides’ play Bacchae, in which Agave says that she has left her “shuttle at the loom and gone on to greater things” (Euripides, Bacchae, 1235–6).

  11. 11.

    However, the sources on Cynicism also include elements of the Ancient tradition of despising femininity in both looks and character (cf. Chap. 5). In Diogenes Laertius’ report, when Diogenes the Cynic saw women who had hanged themselves on a tree, he stated that he wished all trees would yield such fruits (DL VI: 53). He also makes fun of effeminate men and compares beautiful courtesans to poison and a woman in a sedan chair to a beast in a cage (DL VI: 51–66). Thus, the disapproving view on femininity, discussed above, is also evident in the Cynic view (or at least the stories told of it).

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York, NY, USA

    Malin Grahn-Wilder

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Correspondence to Malin Grahn-Wilder .

Appendix

Appendix

Aristotle

Econ. :

Economics

EN :

Nicomachean Ethics

Pol. :

Politics

  • The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation. Jonathan Barnes (revised). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers (DL)

  • Diogenis Laertii Vitae philosophorum. Miroslav Marcovich (ed.). Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Vol. 1. Stuttgart-Lipsia: Teubner, 1999–2002.

  • Lives of Eminent Philosophers. R.D. Hicks (transl.). Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Epictetus

  • Discourses (Disc.)

  • Encheiridion (Ench.)

  • Fragments

  • Discourses and Selected Writings. Christopher Gill (ed.). Robin Hard (transl.). London: J.M. Dent & Vermont, Tuttle/Everyman, 1995.

  • Discourses. Books I–IV. W.A. Oldfather (transl.). Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Euripides

  • Bacchae

  • Fabulae, Volume III: Helena, Phoenissae, Orestes, Bacchae, Iphigenia Aulidensis, Rhesus. J. Diggle (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Plato

Rep. :

Republic

  • Platonis Opera (Oxford Classical Texts):

  • Vol. 1, ed. E.A. Duke et al. 1995.

  • Vol. 2, ed. J. Burnet 1922.

  • Vol. 3, ed. J. Burnet 1922.

  • Vol. 4, ed. J. Burnet 1922.

  • Respublica, ed. S.R. Slings 2003.

  • Complete Works. John M. Cooper (ed.). D.S. Hutchinson (associate ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1997.

  • Plato in Twelve Volumes. Vol. 5–6, The Republic. Paul Shorey (transl.). London: Heinemann, 1969.

Plutarch

  • Conjugalia Praecepta

  • Moralia. Frank Cole Babbitt (transl.). Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press and W. Heinemann, 1967–1984.

Stobaeus

Anth. :

Anthology

  • Anthologium, Ioannis Stobaeus. Otto Hense and Curtius Wachsmuth (eds.). Weidman: Berolini, 1884–1909.

Xenophon

Oec. :

Oeconomicus

  • Oeconomicus—A Social and Historical Commentary. Sarah B. Pomeroy (transl.). Oxford: Clarendon University Press, 1994.

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Grahn-Wilder, M. (2018). Gender, Politics, and Economics: From Plato’s Utopianism to Cynic Radicalism. In: Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53694-1_11

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