Xenophon's The Education of a Wife

Without property there could be no household. There was no economy separate from privately owned farms and small businesses, which provided jobs in our sense of the word (Nagle 105).

Ischomachus explains to his wife how she is to be in charge of the household. When we read these words, we may think of doing housework, cooking meals, and caring for the children, but for the Greeks, being in charge of the household meant much more and much greater responsibility. Nagle explains it as follows:

A wife was not a slave in her own household, firmly under the thumb of her despotic, patriarchal husband, who arranged everything without her knowledge or consent. On the contrary, wives ran the household and were well informed on domestic finances and participated fully in family decision making (Nagle 105).

There is something businesslike in the way Ischomachus explains her duties to his wife, and Nagel would agree as he compares the household to a sort of corporation that is jointly ma

. . .
that it is a job she is suited for as a woman, that her job as just as important as his, that each of them is suited to a certain role in society, and that she must learn how to perform her job properly in order to serve the greater needs of the family and the community. The husband explains this to her patiently. He does not order her to take this role but instead convinces her of its importance and then helps her learn it. It is significant that his discussion begins with the reasons for marriage. Socrates asks Ischomachus how he set out to teach his wife, and Ischomachus says he waited until she was "tamed sufficiently to play her part in a discussion," at which time he asked her if she had wondered why he chose her to be his wife. Marriage is a deliberate act, with the parents seeking the best man, and the man seeking the woman who would be the best wife to him and the best mother for his children. The two come together with property of their own and pool it, adding to it as they can over time. Part of this pooling is the polling of ability and help for one another, at which point the wife asks what she can contribute. Ischomachus tells her that she can contribute by doing "as well as possible what Heaven has given yo
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1329
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)