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This is one of a series of posts designed to support students and teachers looking at the Love and Relationships unit of the OCR Classical Civilization A-level. You can find all the posts in the series by clicking on the OCR Seneca hashtag.
Seneca believes it’s possible to love another human being without giving in to irrationality; he also thinks that women have the same capacity for virtue as men, which means they are not automatically inferior to their husbands. This is worth pointing out as it wasn’t necessarily a shared belief in the ancient world; by contrast, Aristotle argues in his Politics that the husband should have what he calls ‘constitutional rule’ over his wife, since men are more fit for command because of their more mature intellect (1259b). Given the premises that Seneca is starting from, what does he think a good marriage looks like?
The first important thing to remember is that Seneca doesn’t think there are any hard and fast rules here – marriage is an indifferent, a thing that in and of itself does not affect our ability to be virtuous. Similarly, a spouse in the abstract is also an indifferent – but while there are no such thing as abstract spouses, there are people who we might be married to. The combination of individuals in a marriage will determine whether or not it is a positive or negative influence on the virtue of Stoic disciples.
One point Seneca is very strong on is that relationships between spouses should not be ruled by affectus or irrational passion; the relationship should be grounded in reason, although since individual circumstances vary so greatly it’s impossible to produce a handbook of suitable guidance. What should be at the heart of the relationship, though, is that sense that reason is important. This comes back to Stoic ideas about eros and the idea that it is generated through attraction to someone else’s potential for reason: if you’ve fallen in love with someone because of their inherent potential for virtue, then you are going to use the relationship as an opportunity for them to develop that potential. This means that the non-wise become wise because of the mutual relationship between spouses, as the wise person educates their spouse or two disciples support each other along the intellectual journey. A marriage based on virtue and reason thus produces more virtue and reason.
The really important thing about the Stoic belief in the equality of the sexes here is that this means that the wise person in the marriage doesn’t have to be the husband. It could be the wife who is wise, or who is further advanced along her intellectual journey towards virtue. This opens up the possibility of a wife guiding her husband towards virtue as well as vice versa.
A further important factor about Seneca’s expectations of married life is that he strongly disapproves of the sexual double standard, as we see from On Marriage V 28:
The marriages of certain people adjoin adulteries and – what a shameful thing! – the same men who took away pudicitia taught it to those women. Consequently, satiety quickly broke down the marriages in the same way. As soon as fear vanished from the charm of desire, what became allowed became worthless.
Seneca is not impressed with men who encourage women into adultery and then expect their own wives to remain faithful – they’ve lost the moral high ground. If a relationship has at its foundation this kind of confused belief, that it’s alright for one group of people to behave in a certain way and not alright for another group of people to behave similarly, then that’s a warning signal of a marriage based on irrationality.
Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy: Études bibliques offertes a l'occasion de son 60e anniversaire. Edited by: Casetti, Pierre; Keel, Othmar; Schenker, Adrian (1981). Fribourg, Switzerland / Göttingen, Germany: Éditions Universitaires / Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN: 2-8271-0197-1.
LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND—According to a report in The Guardian, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery dating from the late fifth to mid-sixth centuries A.D. and containing at least 20 graves has been discovered in England’s East Midlands. The men in the cemetery were buried with shields and spears, as would be expected. The women, however, were interred with elaborate brooches to fasten their clothing and necklaces made of amber, glass, and rock crystal beads. The only remains of children recovered during the excavation were of a baby cradled in a woman’s left arm. Hugh Willmott of the University of Sheffield said the skeletons and artifacts in the cemetery hint at the movement of goods and people during the Anglo-Saxon period. Some of the women carried fabric bags held open with rings made of elephant ivory from sub-Saharan Africa. Silver buckles and rings recovered from the graves, he added, resembled those associated with other Germanic communities to the south, and isotopic analysis of the bones of one of the women suggests she grew up in the chalk hills along England’s southeastern coast. To read in-depth about the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, go to “Letter from England: Stronghold of the Kings in the North.”
OSAKA, JAPAN—The Mainichi reports that an investigation of Daisen Kofun, a large, keyhole-shaped burial mound on the island of Honshu, has revealed that one of the dykes surrounding it was paved with white stones. The tomb, which is surrounded by a total of three moats and two dykes, is thought to have been built in the mid-fifth century A.D. for Emperor Nintoku. Little is known about the structure, however, because in the past access to it has been limited by Japan’s Imperial Household Agency. Scholars think the mound itself was covered with some 50 million stones. The discovery of paving on the inner dike, which covers an area of about 78,000 square yards, increases the estimated amount of labor that was required to build the tomb complex. “This is overwhelmingly unique,” commented archaeologist Kazuo Ichinose of Kyoto Tachibana University. To read about another recent discovery in Japan, go to “Samurai Nest Egg.”
COPENHAGEN, DEMARK—The Local reports that a rare medieval seal stamp found in Denmark’s western Jutland belonged to Elisabeth Buggesdatter, who is known to historians through written sources for speaking at political gatherings attended mostly by men. Buggesdatter's father, Niels Bugge, was an extremely wealthy man who led a revolt against King Valdemar IV Atterdag and was killed in 1358. Seal stamps were usually destroyed upon the death of the owner, so archaeologists aren’t sure how the artifact ended up in a farmer’s field, on land without any known connections to Buggesdatter. For more on medieval Denmark, go to “Secrets of Life in the Soil.”
An officer of equestrian or senatorial rank, primarily with the auxilia (equestrian) and legions (both senatorial and equestrian) (Veg., DRM 2.12; Tac., Ag. 5); t. angusticlavius: Literally ‘narrow stripe’ tribune, of equestrian rank; there were five in each legion (Suet., Otho 10); t. cohortis: equestrian tribune in charge of a cohors milliaria (RIB 2057; AE 1956, 123); t. laticlavius: Literally ‘broad stripe’ tribune, of senatorial rank; second-in-command of a legion (AE 1912, 17; CIL XIV, 3610); t. vexillationis: A tribune in charge of a vexillatio (Amm. 25.1.9; AE 1995, 653; CIL XIV, 3602). [Goldsworthy 2003]
Commander of a warship (not necessarily a trieris) in a classis. Tac., Hist. 2.16; CIL VIII, 21025; XVI, 1. [Goldsworthy 2003]
ARCE-PA Lecture & Holiday Party
Dr. Steve Harvey, Director, Ahmose and Tetisheri Project, Abydos, EGYPT
Understanding Ancient Egyptian Comics: Conversations, Quarrels, and Songs in Ancient Egyptian Tombs
ABSTRACT