CALLICRATIDAS:
ON THE FELICITY OF FAMILIES
THE UNIVERSE MUST BE CONSIDERED as a system of kindred communion or association. But every system consists of certain dissimilar contraries, and is organized with reference to one particular thing, which is the most excellent, and also with a view to benefit the majority. What we call a choir is a system of musical communion in view of one common thing, a concert of voices. Further, a ship's construction plan contains many dissimilar contrary things which are arranged with reference to one thing which is best-the pilot, and the common advantage of a prosperous voyage.
Now a family is also a system of kindred communion, consisting of dissimilar proper parts organized in view of the best thing, the father of the family, the common advantage being unanimity. In the same manner as a zither, every family requires three things: apparatus, organization, and a certain manner of practice or musical use. An apparatus -- being the composition of all its parts -- is that from which the whole, and the whole system of kindred communion, derives its consummation. A family is divided into two divisions, man and the possessions, which latter is the thing governed which affords utility. Thus also, an animal's first and greatest parts are soul and body: soul being that which governs and uses, the body being that which is governed and affords utility. Possessions indeed are the advantageous instruments of human life, while the body is a tool born along with the soul, and kindred to it. Of the persons that complete a family, some are relatives and others only attracted acquaintances. The former are born from the same blood or race, but the latter are of an accidental alliance commencing with the communion of wedlock. These are either fathers or brothers, or maternal and paternal grandfathers, or other relatives by marriage. But if the good arising from friendship is also to be referred to a family -- for thus it will become greater and more magnificent, not only through an abundance of wealth and many relations, but also through numerous friends -- in this case it is evident that the family will thus become more ample, and that friendship is a social relation essential to a family. Possessions are either necessary or desirable. The necessary subserve the wants of life; the desirable produce an elegant and well-ordered life. However, whatever exceeds what is not needed for an elegant and well-ordered life are the roots of wantonness, insolence and destruction. Great possessions swell out with pride and this leads to arrogance and fastidiousness, conceiving that their kindred, nation and tribe do not equal them. Fastidiousness leads to insolence, whose end is destruction. Wherever then in family or city there is a superfluity of possessions, the legislator must cut off and amputate the superfluities, as a good husbandman prunes luxurious leafage.
In the family's domestic part there are three divisions: the governor (the husband), the governed (the wife), and the auxiliary (the offspring).
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With respect to practical and rational domination, one kind is despotic, another protective, and another political. The despotic is that which governs with a view to the advantage of the governor, and not of the governed, as a master rules his slaves or a tyrant his subjects. But the guardian domination subsists for the sake of the governed and not the governor, as the masseurs rule the athletes, physicians rule over the sick, and instructors rule over their pupils. Their labors are not directed to their own advantage but to the benefit of those they govern: those of the physician being undertaken for the sake of the sick, that of the masseurs for the sake of exercising somebody else's body, and those of the erudite for the ignorant. Political domination, however, aims at the common benefit of both governors and governed. For in human affairs, according to this domination, are organized both a family and a city: just as the world and divine affairs are in correspondence, a family and a city stand in relation analogous to the government of the world. Divinity indeed is the principle of nature, and his attention is directed neither to his own advantage, nor to private good, but to that of the public. That is why the world is called cosmos, from the orderly disposition of all things, which are mutually organized with reference to the most excellent thing -- God -- who, according to our notions of him, is a celestial living being, incorruptible, and the principle and cause of the orderly disposition of wholes.
Since therefore the husband rules over the wife, he rules with a power either despotic, protective, or political. Despotic power is out of the question, as he diligently attends to her welfare; nor is it protective entirely, for he has to consider himself also. It remains therefore that he rules over her with a political power, according to which both the governor and the governed seek the common advantage. Hence wedlock is established with a view to the communion of life. Those husbands that govern their wives despotically are by them hated; those that govern them protectively are despised, being as it were mere appendages and flatterers of their wives. But those that govern them politically are both admired and beloved. Both these will be effected if he who governs exercises his power so that it may be mingled with pleasure and veneration: pleasure being produced from his fondness, but veneration from his doing nothing vile or abject.
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He who wishes to marry ought to take for a wife one whose fortune is conformable to his own, neither above nor beneath, but of equal property. Those who marry a woman above their condition have to contend for the mastership; for the wife, surpassing her husband in wealth and lineage, wishes to rule over him, but he considers it to be unworthy of him and unnatural to submit to his wife. But those who marry a wife beneath their condition subvert the dignity and reputation of their family. One should imitate the musician who, having learned the proper tone of his voice, moderates it so as to be neither sharp nor flat, nor broken, nor strident. So wedlock should be adjusted to the tone of the soul, so that the husband and wife may accord, not only in prosperity, but also in adversity. The husband should be his wife's regulator, master and preceptor: regulator, in paying diligent attention to his wife's affairs; master, in governing and exercising authority over her; and preceptor in teaching her such things as are fitting for her to know. This will be specially effected by him who, directing his attention to worthy parents, from their family marries a virgin in the flower of her youth. Such virgins are easily fashioned and docile, and are naturally well disposed to be instructed by, and to fear and love their husbands.