Plato in a remarkable passage of the Leges (i. 638 B), deprecates and complains of this instantaneous condemnation without impartial hearing of argument on both sides.
[146] See the arguments urged by Aristotle, Politic. ii. 4, p. 1262, a. 25 et seq. His remarks upon the fictions which Plato requires to be impressed on the belief of his Guardians are extremely just. There are, however, several objections urged by him which turn more upon the Platonic language than upon the Platonic vein of thought, and which, if judged by Plato from his own point of view, would have appeared admissions in his favour rather than objections. In reply to Plato, whose aim it is that all or many of the Guardians shall say mine in reference to the same persons or the same things, and not in reference to different persons and different things, Aristotle contends that the word mine will not then designate any such strong affection as it does now, when it is special, exclusive, and concentrated on a few persons or things; that each Guardian, having many persons whom he called brother and many persons whom he called father, would not feel towards them as persons now feel towards brothers and fathers; that the affection by being disseminated would be weakened, and would become nothing more than a “diluted friendship” — φιλία ὑδαρής. See Aristot. Politic. ii. 3, p. 1261, b. 22; ii. 4, p. 1262, b. 15.
Plato, if called upon for an answer to this reasoning, would probably have allowed it to be just; but would have said that the “diluted friendship” pervading all the Guardians was apt and sufficient for his purpose, as bringing the whole number most nearly into the condition of one organism. Strong exclusive affections, upon whatever founded, between individuals, he wishes to discourage: the hateful or unfriendly sentiments he is bent on rooting out. What he desires to see preponderant, in each Guardian, is a sense of duty to the public: subordinate to that, he approves moderate and kindly affections, embracing all the Guardians; towards the elders as fathers, towards those of the same age as brothers. Aristotle’s expression — φιλία ὑδαρής — describes such a sentiment fairly enough. See Republic, v. pp. 462-463. It must be conceded, however, that Plato’s language is open to Aristotle’s objection.
Plato has strong feelings of right and wrong about sexual intercourse, but referring to different objects.
But we must recollect that it is these very sentiments which Plato impugns and declares to be inapplicable to his Guardians: so that an opponent who, not breaking off at once with the cry of horror uttered by the Indians to Darius, begins to discuss the question with him, is bound to forego objections and repugnances springing as corollaries from a basis avowedly denied. Plato has earnest feelings of right and wrong, in regard both to the functions of women and to the sexual intercourse: but his feelings dissent entirely from those of readers generally. That is right, in his opinion, which tends to keep up the excellence of the breed and the proper number of Guardians, as well as to ensure the exact and constant fulfilment of their mission: that is wrong, which tends to defeat or abridge such fulfilment, or to impair the breed, or to multiply the number beyond its proper limit. Of these ends the Rulers are the proper judges, not the individual person. All the Guardians are enjoined to leave the sexual power absolutely unexercised until the age of thirty for men, of twenty for women — and then only to exercise it under express sanction and authorisation, according as the Rulers may consider that children are needed to keep up the legitimate number.
Marriage is regarded as holy, and celebrated under solemn rites — all the more because both the ceremony is originated, and the couples selected, by the magistrates, for the most important public purpose: which being fulfilled, the marriage ceases and determines. It is not celebrated with a view to the couple themselves, still less with a view to establish any permanent exclusive attachment between them: which object Plato not only does not contemplate, but positively discountenances: on the same general principle as the Catholic Church forbids marriage to priests: because he believes that it will create within them motives and sentiments inconsistent with the due discharge of their public mission.
Different sentiment which would grow up in the Platonic Commonwealth respecting the sexual relations.
It is clear that among such a regiment as that which Plato describes in his Guardians, a sentiment would grow up, respecting the intercourse of the sexes, totally different from that which prevailed elsewhere around him. The Platonic restriction upon that intercourse up in the (until the ulterior limits of age) would be far more severe: but it would be applied with reference to different objects. Instead of being applied to enforce the exclusive consecration of one woman to one man, choosing each other or chosen by fathers, without any limit on the multiplication of children, — and without any attention to the maintenance or deterioration of the breed — it would be directed to the obtaining of the most perfect breed and of the appropriate number, leaving the Guardians, female as well as male, free from all permanent distracting influences to interfere with the discharge of their public duties. In appreciating the details of the Platonic community, we must look at it with reference to this form of sexual morality; which would generate in the Guardians an appreciation of details consistent with itself both as to the women and as to the children. The sentiment of obligation, of right and wrong, respecting the relations of the sexes, is everywhere very strong; but it does not everywhere attach to the same acts or objects. The important obligation for a woman never to show her face in public, which is held sacred through so large a portion of the Oriental world, is noway recognised in the Occidental: and in Plato’s time, when mankind were more disseminated among small independent communities, the divergence was yet greater than it is now. The Spartans were not induced, by the censures or mockery of persons in other Grecian cities,[147] to suppress the gymnastic exercises practised by their maidens in conjunction with the young men: nor is Plato deterred by the ridicule or blame which others may express, from proclaiming his conviction, that the virtue of his female Guardians is the same as that of the male — consisting in the faithful performance of their duty as Guardians, after going through all the requisite training, gymnastic and musical. And he follows this up by the general declaration, one of the most emphatic in all his writings, “The best thing which is now said or ever has been said, is, that what is profitable is honourable — and what is hurtful, is base”.[148]
[147] Eurip. Androm. 598.
The criticisms of Xenophon in the first chapter of his treatise, De Laced. Republ., exhibit a point of view on many points analogous to that of Plato respecting the female sex, and differing from that which he puts into the mouth of Ischomachus in his Œkonomicus. See above, [p. 172, note 3]. Among the lost treatises of Kleanthes, successor of Zeno as Scholarch of the Stoic School, one was composed expressly to show Ὅτι ἡ αὐτὴ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικός. (Diog. Laert. vii. 175.)