Sokrates now assumes the special question of the dialogue to be answered, and the picture of the just or perfect city, as well as of the just or perfect individual, to be completed. He is next proceeding to set forth the contrasts to this picture — that is, the varieties of injustice, or the various modes of depravation and corruption — when he is arrested by Polemarchus and Adeimantus: who call upon him to explain more at large the position of the body of Guardians or Soldiers in the city, in regard to women, children, and the family.[115]
[115] Plato, Republic, v. p. 449 C.
Men and women will live together and perform the duties of Guardians alike — They will receive the same gymnastic and musical training.
In reply, Sokrates announces his intention to make such provision as will exclude separate family ties, as well as separate property, among these Guardians. The Guardians will consist both of men and women. The women will receive the same training, both musical and gymnastical, as the men.[116] They will take part both in the bodily exercises of the palæstra, in the military drill, and in the combats of war. Those who deride these naked exercises as preposterous for the female sex, should be reminded (Sokrates says) that not long ago it was considered unseemly among the Greeks (as it still is among many of the barbari) for men to expose their naked bodies in the palæstra: but such repugnance has been overpowered by the marked usefulness of the practice: the Kretans first setting the example, next the Lacedæmonians; lastly all other Greeks doing the same.[117] We maintain the principle which we laid down in the beginning, that one person should perform only one duty — that for which he is best qualified. But there is no one function, or class of functions, for which women as such are peculiarly qualified, or peculiarly disqualified. Between women generally, and men generally, in reference to the discharge of duties, there is no other difference, except that men are superior to women in every thing:[118] the best women will be on a level only with the second-best men, but they will be superior to all men lower than the second best. But among women, as among men, there are great individual differences: one woman is fit for one duty, another for another: and in our city, each must be employed for the duty suitable to her individual disposition. Those who are best qualified by nature for the office of Guardians, must be allotted to that office: they must discharge it along with the men, and must be trained for it by the same education as the men, musical and gymnastical.
[116] Plato, Republic, v. p. 452 A.
[117] Plato, Republic, v. p. 452 D.
[118] Plato, Republic, v. p. 455 C-D.
Nature does not prescribe any distribution of functions between men and women. Women are inferior to men in every thing. The best women are equal to second-best men.
If an objector accuses us of proposing arrangements contrary to nature, we not only deny the force of the objection, but we retort the charge. We affirm that the arrangements now existing in society, which restrict all women to a limited number of domestic and family functions, are contrary to nature — and that ours are founded upon the genuine and real dictates of nature.[119] The only difference admissible between men and women, in the joint discharge of the functions of Guardians, is, that the easier portion of such functions must in general be assigned to women, and the more difficult to men, in consequence of the inferiority of the feminine nature.[120]
[119] Plato, Republic, v. p. 456 C. κατὰ φύσιν ἐτίθεμεν τὸν νόμον· ἀλλὰ τὰ νῦν παρὰ ταῦτα γιγνόμενα παρὰ φύσιν μᾶλλον, ὡς ἔοικε, γίγνεται.