AND IN ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME WORK.
With respect also to practical and rational domination, one kind is despotic, another is of a guardian nature, and another is political. And the despotic, indeed, is that which governs with a view to the advantage of the governor, and not of the governed. For after this manner a master rules over his slaves, and a tyrant over his subjects. But the guardian domination subsists for the sake of the governed, and not for the sake of those that govern. And with this kind of power the anointers rule over the athletæ, physicians over the sick, and preceptors over their pupils. For their labours are not directed to their own advantage, but to the benefit of those whom they govern; those of the physician being undertaken for the sake of the sick, the anointers for the sake of exercising the body, and those of the erudite for the sake of the inerudite. But the political domination has for its end the common benefit both of the governors and the governed. For according to this domination, in human affairs, both a family and a city are coharmonized; but in things of a divine nature the world is aptly composed. A family, however, and a city are an imitation according to analogy of the government of the world. For divinity is the principle of nature, and his attention is neither directed to his own advantage, nor to private, but to public good. And on this account, the world is called κοσμος, from the orderly disposition of all things which are coarranged with reference to one thing which is most excellent, and this is God, who is, according to conception, an intellectual[27] animal, incorruptible, and the principle and cause of the orderly disposition of wholes. Since, therefore, the husband rules over the wife, he either rules with a despotic, or with a guardian, or, in the last place, with a political power. But he does not rule over her with a despotic power: for he is diligently attentive to her welfare. Nor is his government of her entirely of a guardian nature: for this is itself a part of the communion [between man and wife]. It remains, therefore, that he rules over her with a political power, according to which both the governor and the thing governed establish [as their end] the common advantage. Hence, also, wedlock is established with a view to the communion of life. Those husbands, therefore, that govern their wives despotically, are hated by them; but those that govern them with a guardian authority are despised by them. For they appear to be, as it were, appendages and flatterers of their wives. But those that govern them politically are both admired and beloved. And both these will be effected, if he who governs exercises his power so that it may be mingled with pleasure and veneration; pleasure indeed being produced by his fondness, but veneration from his doing nothing of a vile or abject nature.