Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| [1343a] Household management and statesmanship differ not only to the extent that a household and a city differ (for these are their respective subjects), but also in this: statesmanship is the rule of many rulers, while household management is a monarchy. Now some crafts are divided, so that making a thing and using the thing made do not belong to the same craft, as with the lyre and the pipes; but statesmanship's business is both to set up a city from the beginning and to use one already existing well. So it is clear that household management's business too would be both to acquire a household and to use it. A city, then, is a multitude of households, and of land, and of possessions, sufficient for living well. This is plain: for whenever people are unable to attain this, the community also breaks up. Further, it is for the sake of this that people come together; and that for the sake of which each thing exists and has come to be is in fact its substance. So it is clear that household management is prior in origin to statesmanship. And so is its function: for a household is a part of a city. We must therefore examine household management, and what its function is. The parts of a household are the human being and property. And since the nature of each thing is first studied in its smallest instances, this would hold likewise concerning a household.
2| So according to Hesiod, one would need to have, first of all, a house, a woman, and an ox for ploughing. (Hesiod, Works and Days 405) For the one is first for sustenance, the other for the work of free persons. So one would need to manage well the matters concerning intercourse with one's wife; and this is a matter of contriving what sort of woman she ought to be. Of property, the first concern is that according to nature. According to nature, farming comes first, and second come the pursuits that take from the earth, such as mining and any other of that kind. Farming is foremost, because it is just: for it does not take from human beings, neither willing, as retail trade and wage-earning occupations do, nor unwilling, as the arts of war do. Further, it is also among the things according to nature: for by nature nourishment for all comes from a mother,
3| [1343b] and so for human beings too it comes from the earth. Besides this, farming also contributes greatly to manly courage: for unlike the vulgar crafts, it does not render bodies useless, but capable of living outdoors and of toiling, and further capable of facing danger against enemies; for these alone have their possessions outside their fortifications. Of the concerns regarding human beings, the first concern is that regarding one's wife: for community belongs by nature most of all to the female and the male. For we have laid down elsewhere that nature aims to accomplish many such things, as with each of the animals; but it is impossible for the female without the male, or the male without the female, to bring this about; so their community is constituted of necessity. Now among the other animals this exists without reason, and only to the extent that they partake of nature, and only for the sake of producing offspring; but among the tamer and more intelligent animals it is more fully articulated (for they are seen giving one another more help and goodwill and cooperation), and in the human being most of all, because the female and the male are cooperative with one another not only for existing but also for existing well. And the acquisition of children turns out to belong to nature not only for the sake of service but also for advantage: for whatever help the able render to the unable, they in turn receive back from those able when they themselves become unable, in old age. At the same time nature also fills up, through this cycle, the goal of existing forever, since it cannot do so numerically, but can in respect of form. Thus the nature of each of the two, of the man and of the woman, has been arranged beforehand by the divine for community. For it has been apportioned that their power is not useful for the same things in every respect, but some powers even for opposite things, though converging toward the same end: for it made the one stronger, the other weaker,
4| [1344a] so that the one might be more given to guarding, on account of fear, and the other more given to defending, on account of manly courage; and so that the one might procure what is outside, the other preserve what is within; and with a view to labor, that the one be capable of remaining seated, but weak for outdoor exposures, while the other be worse for stillness but healthy for movements; and concerning children, that begetting be common, but their benefit distinct: for the nourishing of them belongs to the one, the educating to the other. First, then, come the laws concerning one's wife, and the rule of not wronging her: for in this way one would not be wronged oneself either. This is what the common law too suggests, as the Pythagoreans say: that one ought to think it least of all right to wrong her, since she is like a suppliant and one led from the hearth; and a man's injustice consists in liaisons occurring outside the house. Concerning intercourse with her, one should neither need it not at all, nor be unable to abstain from it as though she were absent, but should train oneself so as to be sufficiently disposed both when she is present and when she is not. And Hesiod's saying holds well too: 'Marry a maiden, that you may teach her steady ways.' (Hesiod, Works and Days 699) For dissimilarities of character are least conducive to friendship. And concerning adornment, just as it is not right for people to approach one another with characters put on for show, so it is not right with their bodies either.
5| For intercourse carried on by means of adornment is no different from the dealings of tragic actors with one another in their stage costumes. Of possessions, the first and most necessary is the best and most suited to household management, and this was the human being. Hence one must first provide oneself with worthy slaves. There are two kinds of slaves, the overseer and the laborer. And since we see that upbringings make the young turn out of a certain sort, it is necessary, once one has provided oneself with slaves, also to rear those to whom one is going to assign the tasks proper to free persons. One's dealings with slaves should be such as to allow them neither to grow insolent nor to be aggrieved, and one should give a share of honor to the more free-spirited among them, and an abundance of food to the laborers. And since the drinking of wine makes even free persons insolent, and many peoples abstain from it even among the free, as the Carthaginians do on campaign, it is clear that slaves should be given a share of it either not at all or seldom. There being three things, work, punishment, and food, to have food but be neither punished nor made to work breeds insolence;
6| [1344b] while to have work and punishments but not food is violent and produces incapacity. What remains, then, is to supply work and sufficient food; for it is not possible to rule the unpaid, and for a slave food is his pay. And just as with others generally, when the better do not fare better and there are no prizes for excellence and for badness, they grow worse, so too concerning household slaves. Hence one must give consideration to this, and distribute and remit each thing according to desert—food and clothing and time off and punishments—imitating in word and deed the physicians' power in the matter of medicine, while also taking further note that food, because it is continual, is no medicine. The classes best suited to the various tasks would be neither cowardly nor overly bold: for both kinds do wrong. The excessively cowardly do not hold up under work, and the high-spirited are not easily ruled. There ought also to be a fixed goal set for all: for it is just and advantageous that freedom be laid down as the prize, since they are willing to labor when there is a prize and the time is fixed. One must also, in effect, hold hostages through their having children; and one should not acquire many slaves of the same nationality, just as is done in cities too; and sacrifices and festivities should be held more for the sake of the slaves than of the free, since these have a greater share in that for the sake of which such things were instituted.
7| There are four kinds of skill that the household manager must possess with regard to property. For one must be capable both of acquiring and of guarding it; otherwise there is no benefit in acquiring it, since that amounts to drawing water with a sieve, or the so-called leaky jar. Further, one must also be capable of arranging what one has in good order and of using it; for it is for the sake of these that we need those other two as well. Each of these functions must be kept distinct, and the fruit-bearing possessions should be more numerous than the fruitless, and the various operations should be so distributed that they do not all run risk together. For safekeeping it is advantageous to employ both the Persian and the Laconian methods. The Attic style of management is useful too: for people sell in order to buy, and the setting up of a storeroom has no place in the smaller households. The Persian method consisted in having everything ordered and in the master himself overseeing everything, in line with what Dion said about Dionysius: for no one takes care of others' affairs in the same way as of his own, so that, so far as is possible,
8| [1345a] One must take care of things in person. And the saying of the Persian and the saying of the Libyan would both be well put. For the one, asked what fattens a horse best, said, "The master's eye." And the Libyan, asked what manure is best, said, "The master's footprints." One must therefore oversee some things oneself and leave others to one's wife, since the tasks of household management are divided between the two. And this must be done rarely in small households, but often in those run by a steward. For it is not possible to imitate well someone who does not set a good example, whether in other matters or in stewardship, since it is impossible for those set in charge to be careful when the masters themselves are not careful. And since these things are both fine with a view to virtue and useful with a view to household management, masters must rise before their household servants and go to bed after them; and the house must never be left unguarded, any more than a city; and whatever needs doing must never be let slip, whether by night or by day; and one should get up in the night, for this is useful both for health and for household management and for philosophy. Now in small estates the Attic manner of disposing of the produce is useful; but in large ones, once expenditures reckoned by the year and those reckoned by the month have been divided out, and likewise the use of equipment needed daily and that needed only rarely, these matters must be handed over to those set in charge.
9| In addition to this, an inspection of these must also be made at intervals, so that what is being preserved and what is falling short does not go unnoticed. A house must be built with an eye both to one's possessions and to the health and well-being of those in it. By possessions I mean, for instance, what arrangement suits crops and clothing, and among crops which suits the dry kind and which the moist, and among other possessions which suits living things and which lifeless ones, and slaves and free persons, and women and men, and strangers and citizens. And it should also serve well-being and health, being well-ventilated in summer and well-lit by the sun in winter. Such a house would face north and not be of equal width throughout. It seems that in large households a doorkeeper is also useful — one unfit for other tasks — for the safekeeping of what is carried in and carried out. [1345b] For the convenient use of equipment, the Laconian practice applies: each item must lie in its own place; for in that way, being ready to hand, it will not need to be hunted for.