The economies of pedagogy: Xenophon's wifely didactics

Abstract

Xenophon's Oeconomicus is a work which has recently prompted a number of widely divergent responses. A predominant reading offers that the work is a testimony to Greek misogyny in the classical period: the husband Ischomachus takes a young, inexperienced wife, who is accordingly and following custom tamed and instructed to manage the space within the οἶχος. Another interpretation regards Xenophon and Ischomachus as better-than-average Greek men with respect to women's standing in society, or even as proto-feminist. In this treatment of the dialogue, the fact that the husband allows the wife her own space – the home (as distinct from the farm outdoors) – and teaches her her own activities – housework and the management of the household slaves – demonstrates a considerable degree of respect for the wife and for woman's worth, while Socrates' exclamation that the wife has a ‘masculine intellect (ἀνδϱιχὴν διάνοιαν)’ (10.1) is to be taken as proof of the Xenophontic wife's authority. There are further variations which qualify these interpretations: either the husband is regarded as echoing Socratic sympathy towards women while continuing to insist that the wife be a domestic; or the husband, despite being a misogynist, is seen as granting the wife some degree of autonomy.