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Does Aristotle Exclude Women from Politics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Harold L. Levy
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Extract

Virtually all scholars interpret Aristotle to exclude women from politics. I will argue that Aristotle does not directly investigate this question, and that his text does not require such an interpretation. First, the article will show that scholars have overlooked the basic problem for interpreters of Aristotle, and that they have prematurely foreclosed counterinterpretation of the text. Second, it will show that the text is open to this particular counterinterpretation: very guardedly, Aristotle implies reasons for including women in politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , Summer 1990 , pp. 397 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1990

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References

Notes

Earlier versions of this article were presented at annual meetings of the American Political Science Association (1987) and the MidWest Political Science Association (1989). I gratefully acknowledge the sabbatical grant from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County which made possible the research for this article. I am also grateful for Professor Jay Freyman’s expert, unfailingly patient help with the translations, which are solely my responsibility. I have used the Loeb Classical Library texts. I cite Aristotle by the standard reference form, including book and chapter. All references to the Ethics are to the Nicomachean Ethics unless otherwise noted. For helpful comments I thank Professors Fred Alford, Evelyn Barker, William Braithwaite, Lewis Dexter, Darrell Dobbs, Curtis Johnson, Christopher Kelly, Thomas Schrock, and the anonymous referees of this journal who, of course, are not responsible for any errors herein.

1. See Brown, Wendy, Manhood and Politics (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988)Google Scholar; Clark, Stephen R. L., “Aristotle's Woman,” History of Political Thought 3 (1982): 177–91Google Scholar; Coole, Diana H., Women in Political Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988)Google Scholar; Dietz, Mary G., “Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking,” Political Theory 13 (1985): 19–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elshtain, Jean B., Public Man, Private Women: Women in Social and Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Fortenbaugh, W. W., Aristotle on Emotion (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1975)Google Scholar; Horowitz, Maryanne C., “Aristotle and Women,” Journal of History of Biology 9 (1976): 183–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Just, R., “Freedom, Slavery, and the Female Psyche,” History of Political Thought 6 (1985): 169–88Google Scholar; Lange, Lynda, “Woman Is Not a Rational Animal: On Aristotle's Biology of Reproduction,” in Discovering Reality, ed. Harding, Sandra G. and Hintikka, Merrill B. (Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1983)Google Scholar; Masugi, Ken, “Another Peek at Aristotle and Phyllis,” in Natural Right and Political Right, ed. Schramm, Peter W. and Silver, Thames B. (Carolina Academic Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Mulgan, R. G., Aristotle's Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Nussbaum, Martha C., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Okin, Susan M., Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Robinson, Richard, The Politics of Aristotle Books III and IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Salkever, Stephen G., “Women, Soldiers, Citizens: Plato and Aristotle on the Politics of Virility,” Polity 19 (1986): 232–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saxonhouse, Arlene W., Women in the History of Political Thought (New York: Praeger, 1985)Google Scholar; Schott, Robin, “Aristotle on Women,” Kinesis 11 (1982): 69–84Google Scholar; Smith, Nicholas D., “Plato and Aristotle on the Nature of Woman,” Journal of History of Philosophy 21 (1983): 467–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tovey, Barbara and Tovey, George, “Women's Philosophical Friends and Enemies,” Social Science Quarterly 55 (1974): 586–604Google Scholar; Zuckert, Catherine H., “Aristotle on the Limits and Satisfactions of Political Life,” Interpretation 11 (1983): 185–206.Google Scholar

2. Brown, , Manhood and Politics, pp. 43–44, 179Google Scholar; Clark, , “Aristotle's Woman,” p. 184Google Scholar; Coole, , Women in Political Theory, p. 45Google Scholar; Dietz, , “Citizenship with a Feminist Face,” p. 25Google Scholar; Elshtain, , Public Man, pp. 41, 44–45Google Scholar; Horowitz, , “Aristotle and Women,” p. 212Google Scholar; Just, “Freedom, Slavery, and the Female Psyche,” p. 176; Lange, , “Woman Is Not a Rational Animal,” p. 10Google Scholar; Okin, , Women in Western Political Thought, pp. 5–82, 90Google Scholar; Robinson, , Politics of Aristotle, p. 102Google Scholar; Saxonhouse, , Women, pp. 87–88Google Scholar; Zucker, “Aristotle on Limits and Satisfactions,” p. 195.Google Scholar Very few suggest that this exclusion might be less than categorical. Nichols, Mary P. alone suggests that Aristotle's principles may allow women a political voice (“Classical Perspectives on Femininity,” Review of Politics 49 [1987]: 130–33 at p. 133).CrossRefGoogle ScholarSalkever, is careful to hedge his formulation with words of supposition and possible qualification (“Women, Soldiers, Citizens,” p. 245).Google ScholarMasugi, , too, is careful to hedge and also argues that Aristotle would not exclude women under modern conditions (“Another Peek,” pp. 280–83).Google Scholar

3. Okin, , Women in Western Political Thought, pp. 82 ff.Google Scholar

4. Aristotle's view of the fitness of women for philosophy is outside the scope of this study. Prudence, which is inferior to philosophy (Ethics 6.13.1145a7 ff; 10.7–8.1178a5–24), is the intellectual virtue that Aristotle discusses in connection with fitness for political rule.

5. Here, and implicitly in the Politics (cited above), he treats aristocracy as best, but elsewhere he treats kingship as best, as in the chapter from the Ethics to which I next refer. His final word on which is best is outside the scope of this study. For my purpose what matters is that he treats good spouses' sharing of authority as a model for some good form of polity.

6. Masugi, “Another Peek,” is one of very few who seriously consider this question in connection with lesser polities. He contends that Aristotle appropriately excluded women because democracy and oligarchy, then the fundamental forms of polity, excluded women for incapacity to share in military service, or to have wealth (pp. 279–80, 282–83). But Aristotle, never arguing at all that women should be excluded, never argues in particular that women should be excluded because of democratic or oligarchic practices or self-justifications or because these were fundamental. As for capacity to share in military service, Masugi himself notes (p. 277) that Aristotle sees women as capable of sharing in battlefield courage. Finally, for Aristotle, , oligarchies should moderate the exclusiveness of their civic standard, and the characteristic democratic civic standard is not military capacity (Politics 3.12–13.1283a16-b34, 5.1.1301a28ff).Google Scholar

7. As Galen very early saw, Aristotle “deceived” readers with this contention (Boylan, Michael, “The Galenic and Hippocratic Challenges to Aristotle's Conception Theory,” Journal of the History of Biology 16 [1984]: 83).CrossRefGoogle ScholarHorowitz, Even “Aristotle and Women,” concedes that, for Aristotle, women give the fetus vegetative form (p. 194).Google Scholar Aristotle also departed from this contention by arguing that women often give the fetus sexual and individual form (Morsink, Johannes, “Was Aristotle's Biology Sexist?” Journal of the History of Biology 12 [1979]: 89, 107–108).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed For Aristotle, men transmit the species form but the relevant point, as shown below, is that women inherit more of the deliberative aptitude that makes our species form distinctive.

8. Horowitz, , “Aristotle and Women,” pp. 211ff.Google Scholar

9. Here Aristotle compares aspects of the sexes' intelligence without making—as he does in other biological works—a combined assessment of intelligence taken together with some other psychic quality. Nowhere does he judge men to be superior to women in intelligence taken separately. (Shulsky, Abram N., “The ‘Infrastructure' of Aristotle's Politics: Aristotle on Economics and Politics,” [1987, unpublished]Google Scholar, shows that there is no mention of intelligence in Aristotle's reference to male superiority in Politics, 1.5.1254b13–15 —a passage commonly misinterpreted on this point.)

10. Aristotle is explicit that “women” are superior in memory, and it is clear from the rest of this passage that in discussing other intellectual qualities his more general expressions, “females” and “males,” refer especially to women and men. For, he states that the sexually differentiated characteristics which he here compares are, in humans, not only especially evident, but complete, History of Animals 9.1.608a21–23, b4–8. By the same token, as he makes cross-species comparisons he keeps inter-species contrasts in mind. Many species remember particulars, History of Animals 1.1.488b25, a necessity for prudence, Ethics 6.7.1141b14ff. But subhuman species have only analogical traces of other faculties that prudence requires, History of Animals 8.1.588a18ff. As only humans can learn the universals which are utilized in deliberation, Ethics 6.7.1141b14ff, subhuman animals “learn” in a way only analogous to human learning. As only humans can do the schematic planning which is utilized in deliberation, Ethics 6.9.1142b31ff, subhuman animals “scheme” in a way only analogous to human scheming, History of Animals 1.1.488b20ff

11. Robinson, , Politics of Aristotle, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

12. Mulgan, , Aristotle’s Political Theory, p. 45.Google Scholar

13. Arthur, Marylin B., “Classics,” Signs 2(1976): 382–403;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Horowitz, “Aristotle and Women”; Okin, Women in Western Political Thought; Saxonhouse, Women in the History of Political Thought; Slater, Philip E., The Glory of Hera (Boston: Beacon Press 1968).Google Scholar

14. Arthur, “Classics.”

15. Cropsey, Joseph, Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics (Chicago: Univesity of Chicago Press, 1977), a seminal work.Google Scholar

16. Aristotle begins in the Greek potential optative: should one look in households for likenesses and, so to speak, models of the forms of polity, one would —or has the potential to —find them. Immediately and decisively Aristotle himself actualizes this potential. He looks in households and indeed finds just such likenesses and models. In the Eudemian Ethics he is also quite decisive about his actually finding them, including specifically spousal aristocracy, in households (7.9.1241b27–39).

17. Suppose it is claimed that including women in household rule is only a stratagem to exclude them from political rule. But no stratagem is needed to sway an audience known already to favor women's political exclusion. Also, Aristotle argues just what such a stratagem would require him to deny or not argue, that women's sharing in household rule is the model for aristocratic political sharing. In view of the alternatives available, his choice of this model is still more striking. After all, if he wishes to avoid the implication of a political share for women, instead of choosing good spouses as the model, he can easily choose good brothers who differ much in age, as a sexually exclusive model, for political aristocracy (Ethics 8.10–11.1160b17ff, 1161a4ff, 25ff). Or, as one who favors a marriage age of about 18 for women and 37 for men (Politics 7.16.1335a27–30), instead of choosing to look at a wife married long enough to attain adult virtue and thus choosing to find some equality between spouses who still differ much in age, he is free to look at a wife just married at 18, treat her as virtually a child (Clark, “Aristotle's Woman”) compared to her husband of 37, and use the spousal relationship as a model for monarchy.

18. Of all these scholars, Nichols, alone has the independent-mindedness to ask why, on Aristotle's principle of proportional equality, women's virtue would not justify their inclusion in politics (“Classical Perspectives on Femininity.” But it seems that for Nichols a voice is all that Aristotle allows women in the household (Socrates and the Political Community [Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1987])Google Scholar or in politics (“Classical Perspectives on Femininity”). Also, she suggests (“Women in Western Political Thought,” Political Science Reviewer 13 [1983]: 241–60)Google Scholar that women's voice, for Aristotle, must be courageous, but by way of service, not of command. However, when Aristotle himself applies the principle of proportional equality to women's virtue, he concludes that the virtuous wife deserves a sphere of command —not mere voice or service —in the household and he implies that virtuous women deserve a share of command in political aristocracy.

19. He argues that prudent rule is using but being ruled is making, and that women's work is guardianship but men's work is acquisition (3.4.1277b24–31). If so, then women are more the prudent rulers and men more the ruled, insofar as guardianship is closer to using and acquisition is closer to making. If only because of his repeated insistence that the relationship between spouses is not monarchic, it is no surprise that his later household-monarchy comparison (3.14.1285b30ff) includes no reference at all to the relationship between spouses. See also page 408, below.

20. Salkever, notes that serious scholars take akuron here to be ambiguous, that Aristotle finds women to be better than men at learning, and that Aristotle finds it to be unjust if in the household men rule in everything (“Women, Soldiers, Citizens,” pp. 240–42, including footnotes 23 and 27, and pp. 245–46).Google Scholar But, without argument to address or overcome these points, this otherwise very careful scholar himself takes akuron here to be unambiguous, contends that for Aristotle the male is “stronger as a rule” in deliberative capacity, and contends that for Aristotle women should “be ruled” but “not rule” (pp. 241–42).

21. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion; Nichols, Mary P., “The Good Life, Slavery, and Acquisition: Aristotle's Introduction to Politics,” Interpretation 11 (1983): 171–83.Google Scholar

22. Butcher, S. H., Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, 4th ed. (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1951);Google Scholar Okin, Women in Western Political Thought.

23. Aristotle glances at the possibility that this man may engage in politics and philosophy (1.7.1255b35–37). In fact, the economic occupations which would exclude this man from a share of rule in the best polity (7.8–9.1328b24–1329a2), also make it doubtful that he will pursue philosophy—let alone read Aristotle on women with the necessary care.

24. Nichols, “Good Life, Slavery, and Acquisition.”

25. Salkever, “Women, Soldiers, Citizens.”

26. Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness; Okin, Women in Western Political Thought; Mulgan, Aristotle's Political Theory; Zuckert, “Aristotle on Limits and Satisfactions”; Saxonhouse, Women in the History of Political Thought.

27. Saxonhouse, , Women in the History of Political Thought, p. 88.Google Scholar

28. Mulgan, Aristotle’s Political Theory.

29. Contrary to impression, his allusion to Ajax is to female prudence and male madness. Also contrary to impression, his reference to Gorgias, if an allusion to Plato's Meno 71dff, is to a spokesman for Gorgias guilty of what Aristotle here derides (the saying in a general way that virtue is acting correctly), and to a Socrates who does better than Gorgias' spokesman at what Aristotle here himself attempts (some discussion of particular virtues).