20
Plato Republic, p. 462 C. Cf. also Plutarch, Moralia, 484 B and 767 D. asserts that the state is prosperous and happy in which the people hear mine and not mine most rarely uttered, the reason being that the citizens, so far as in them lies, treat all things of real importance as common property. Much more should such expressions be eliminated from the married state; save that, as physicians tell us that blows on the left side of the body record the sensation on the right side, so, in the same way, it is a lovely thing for the wife to sympathize with her husband’s concerns and the husband with the wife’s, so that, as ropes, by being intertwined, get strength from each other, thus, by the due contribution of goodwill in corresponding measure by each member, the copartnership may be preserved through the joint action of both. For Nature unites us through the commingling of our bodies, in order that, by taking and blending together a portion derived from each member of a pair, the offspring which she produces may be common to both, so that neither can define or distinguish his own or the other’s part therein. Such a copartnership in property as well is especially befitting married people, who should pour all their resources into a common fund, and combine them, and each should not regard one part as his own and another part as the other’s, but all as his own and nothing as the other’s. As we call a mixture wine, although the larger of the component parts is water, so the property and the estate ought to be said to belong to the husband even though the wife contribute the larger share.
21
Helen was fond of wealth and Paris of pleasure; Odysseus was sensible and Penelope virtuous. Therefore the marriage of the latter pair was happy and enviable, while that of the former created an Iliad of woes for Greeks and barbarians.
