More Insights About A Woman’s Education From Xenophon

Last week, I outlined book (i.e., chapter) seven of Xenophon’s The Economist. This week we’ll look at books eight through ten. These four chapters are the (in)famous part of the work in which a man describes how he trained his young wife to be a real woman. I would recommend reading last week’s article first.

Know Thyself

Book eight begins with Ischomachus recounting a time when his wife was embarrassed that she was unable to do bring him the food item he asked for even though they didn’t have it anyway. Most women today would make an excuse for lack of servility like “I’m too tired from folding laundry all day. Can you make your own sandwich?” Mildred actually has a real excuse, and she chooses to keep quiet out of feminine pride. I can only imagine what their sex life is like, this 14-year-old virgin getting pounded in a way that only an Athenian man could deliver. I bet she gave him anal like all the time.

Ischomachus says, “There is nothing in human life so serviceable, nought so beautiful as order,” in reference to managing a house. He continues on about the orderliness of armies, saying that an army is not intimidating merely because of its size but also because of its organization. I quite like this. What good is chaos? Humans are creatures of habit and tradition, and when we try to break free of tradition to “be our own person,” we soon create new ones whether we realize it or not.

(House)Law and Order

He then spends the rest of the book explaining why it’s so important to have a kitchen cellar so well-organized. It’s good advice but fairly boring, and there’s not a lot for me to comment on. Ischomachus babbles like a woman.

Though it well may raise a smile of ridicule (not on the lips of a grave man perhaps, but of some facetious witling) to hear me say it, a beauty like the cadence of sweet music dwells even in pots and pans set out in neat array.

I concur. I’ve always said that I would pay to sell appliances.

The most disappointing thing about book eight is that Mildred hardly speaks at all. Her character shines a light on everything wrong with the modern woman. But I’ve got to give props to Ischomachus for not being a slob. Ischomachus really undercuts the feminist claim that men the world would be disorderly and ugly without women to keep things straight.

Book nine begins right where book eight left off. Ischomachus prattles on about keeping an organized house, which I guess is his wife’s main job anyway.

You Find Yourself by Looking Where You Left It

“Her delight was evident, like some one’s who at length has found a pathway out of difficulties.” This reminds me of the modern ethic of “finding yourself,” whatever the hell that means. Do you want to find your path in life, to find what you’re supposed to do? Hold a job, maintain a house, and try to live a functional life. Divorcing your husband so you can freedom-bang exotic men is anything but having a functional life.

One issue with “finding yourself” is that it used to not be possible. In the old days, you couldn’t just leave the village to go live with nature or explore new spiritualities. The modernist will argue that that’s because society used to be oppressive and so everyone was miserable, but is today’s society truly happy? Worse case scenario, the feudal man hated his life as much as American Joe, but I’m not sure it’s possible to have a more depressed society than modern America. A simpler time, a sweeter place.

A Lamb amongst Wolves

Ischomachus says that Mildred must be able to serve his friends at parties, and through that she will both “win” their respect and be able to “share [their] joys.” The opinion of a man’s friends concerning his wife are as important as that of a woman’s friends concerning her husband. We are creatures of community, not insular agents. Men like pleasant and comparatively quiet women, and nothing will kill a man night like a woman saying, “Why do you boys get so riled up? It’s just a game!” Worse though is a woman who screeches at the tv when the ref makes a bad call. Either get back in the kitchen and make some pizza rolls, or go knitting with your friends.

Motherly Instinct

But to be obliged to fulfill the duty of attending to her own domestic happiness, that was easy. After all it would seem to be but natural (added he); just as any honest woman finds it easier to care for her own offspring than to neglect them, so, too, he could well believe, an honest woman might find it pleasanter to care for than to neglect possessions, the very charm of which is that they are one’s very own.

Here they discuss that women should be happy to care for their property, and they make an off-hand assumption that “any honest woman finds it easier to care for her own offspring than to neglect them.” Oh, Xenophon, you would weep if you saw our daycare culture today. Today’s empowered woman doesn’t let something like offspring get in the way of her career dreams. A childcare service at best will have children mostly coloring and watching tv. Some influential people even claim that all children should go to preschool.

You know, you read red pill websites, and you think, “No, society can’t be that bad,” and then one Google search destroys your entire faith in America. And notice how none of those links give any statistics about whether the children later do better in real school. I’ll be breaking out the cheap gin tonight.

Skin-deep Beauty

Book ten concerns the virtues of Mildred herself. She was very attentive to cosmetics and physical appearance and even wore high-heeled shoes, proof that modern beauty standards aren’t modern. Ischomachus falls into the trap I myself often do, claiming to prefer natural beauty because of its truth. I suppose this has some merit since girls today will put on far too much make-up, especially when they are in high school.

Ladies, make-up should compliment the face, not define it, and should a man pay attention to your make-up because of the excess, then you have only made yourself look unnatural and less attractive. Aberrant eye-shadow reveals an ungentle soul. It’s like the modern woman is trying to be ugly.

I wish I could say that Athens’s favorite empowered woman won’t hear it and gives him a strong dose of the red pill, but she caves and asks how she may look beautiful to him. Many men don’t know what they really want, and Athens was no stranger to pop-ideology fads. But to her credit, Mildred’s aim in her cosmetics was to please him instead of herself, and when she perceived that to fail, she asked him what would work. Mildred knows a woman should submit to her husband’s beauty standards, at least within reason.

How to Gain a Man’s Love

I’ll give Ischomachus half a point in this scene because he says that what really turns him on is a woman who excels in weaving and baking bread. True, this rings of the “I want a career woman” mentality, but at least he’s not saying “I want a career woman because she will be able to relate to me,” as if men and women can relate to each other anyway. Seriously, ask a woman sometime if she likes CCR and see how similar she is.

In looking for good links for that last paragraph, I was pleased to find absolutely nothing useful written by a man when Google searching for “I want a strong woman” and “I want a career woman,” which is surprising since my former law school peers all make that claim. Every result either was someone explaining why men do not desire a strong career woman or was a woman trying to convince men to want a strong career woman. Perhaps mankind is not lost after all.

Anyway, for all this “I like accomplished women” ethic of Ischomachus, at least the accomplishments he likes are feminine ones, and he continues that it is acts of grace and not mere obligation that turn him on. The saying is true, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” My college girlfriend one time hid a piece of pie from her parents to give to me, and I don’t think I was ever so impressed with her as then.

I’ll also have to agree that just because a woman looks pretty doesn’t mean she’s the kind of woman you want to spend your life with. You lust after a girl with a dolled-up face, but you fall in love with a wife who makes your daily life pleasant.

And so ends the section of The Economist concerning the training of a wife. It both brings hope that women are not naturally depraved and self-centered and also shows just how warped the modern woman is. Mildred wisely understands her own insufficiencies, and she both gladly accepts advice and seeks to master such deficiencies. I never thought I’d find myself envying Amish society.

Source: The Economist by Xenophon. Translated by H. G. Dakyns. Published by Amazon Kindle.

Read More: The Education Of Alciabides By Socrates

23 thoughts on “More Insights About A Woman’s Education From Xenophon”

  1. I find it ironic that you present such a heavy text in such a juvenile way. When you say “I bet she gave him anal like all the time,” you singlehandedly give anyone and everyone all the ammo they need to discredit your article and by extension this entire site. I love that you’re writing about classical texts, I really do. I think one of the great qualities of the manosphere is that it has sparked a renewed interest in the classics for many young men, including myself. But these ideas must be presented in a mature and sophisticated way. We are a community dedicated to regaining lost wisdom and power. Do not degrade our purpose.

    1. “Either get back in the kitchen and make some pizza rolls, or go knitting with your friends.”
      Dammit man, are you trying to be a parody of what we stand for?

      1. Many don’t read Quintus’s articles because they are quite heady. I welcome a more slapstick presentation to the classics… and she probably did give him her booty on the reg. Can’t be having kids all the time, now can we?

        1. I hate how the Greeks are used to promote homosexuality. Now abortion apparently. Most of the “literature” posted by liberals of Greek history are aimed at promoting the “normalcy” of gay sex. It happened, but not in the relational way they try to normalize. Even in modern Africa, anal sex on a man is used to subjugate a population. When the raped man returns to his “beloved,” she often rejects him with the thought that “If he cannot defend himself in front of a whole army, how can he defend me and lose his life for me?”
          If a pedophile sodomized the son of his equal or better, well, let’s just say that the father would not be pulling out his rainbow flag in celebration. He would have likely cut his balls off, and then killed him.
          The word they used to that effect or another for homosexuals was not what we think. Meaning “Same in the community.” I think it is “kinethos.” Homosexuality itself was not favored. But using slaves to “better inform them” their position was definitely practised. I don’t think many men in ancient Greece were content to have thier sons used like that by an older man. I suspect quite strongly it is merely gay propaganda.
          However, the Greeks were, and are, freaks. They love to get freaky, and their women are….quite passionate. If you can get one being a foreigner. They are some of the most stubborn women on the planet. So too I hear were their female ancestors.
          Most “abortion” or contraceptive in the ancient world was actually ritual sacrifice of kids. Apparently, feminists of all stripes have existed in one form or another for thousands of years.

        2. Very true. It is ironic that in the information age, it has dulled the want of learning in most everyone’s mind, that they want McDonald’s “Super Sized” learning capsules. They do not enjoy the rigors of actual learning. They just want the perks.

    2. Here here.
      We have lost the tradition these past forty years of father to son. Especially our brothers in the black community whose offspring are now born to welfare professionals by 72%!
      Our society cannot stand with a bunch of juveniles running the “family business” into the ground.
      Granted, many of us may have been denied access to the ideal upbringing. But our job as men is to overcome adversity, for apparently, our women will not in the overwhelming amount of cases.
      We need not just shame fatties, and trunculent ghetto bishes, but collect on the debt of feminists themselves as head of the household.
      Balanced is achieved when we become what our fathers and grandfathers had lost of themselves. Namely, the power to bestow the blessing on familial offspring. Feminists desire to destroy everything about the old order, and bring about a lesbian utopia of only the best males saved for sperm production, and lifetime of rubbing their pom-poms together. And they call us juvenile?
      Essentially, both our sons, and especially our daughters need the guiding light of male discipline and leadership.
      I am still learning precisely what that means! In the past, I would have been able to go to my father’s dwelling, and asked for his guidance. In his head would be possessed the passed down combined knowledge of perhaps thousands of men who preceded our genetic branches.
      The feminists and their socialist agenda has trimmed our tree well. But they ultimately failed to remove the stump. It is up to us to grow, and relearn, and perhaps re-invent the future to not only mimic the past.

    3. Yes, when I read that like I thought, ‘Yeah, I bet NOT’.
      I’m sure he used his wife for her natural purpose, and to her benefit. Not to their degradation.
      And millions of others thought the same.

  2. I was brought up to seek out a strong, career woman. It took me decades to realize that I had been raised with views that weren’t much different from cult religious teachings. I was close to 40 when I asked myself for the first time: “Why is a career woman good for me?” It was around that time that I had my first non-successful girlfriend. She was the best. 22 years old (yeah, young for me) and adorable. Really sweet, unassuming, emotional little creature with a flawless body and not a materialistic bone in her body. From that point on, I realized that career women are all materialistic cunts. All of them.
    So what happened to my 22 year old cutie? Silly me… I helped her get a job. I watched her grow. Her career blossomed. She turned into a cunt. Started fucking her boss. I dumped her. Now she’s almost 30 and single. She’s put on weight and she doesn’t smile half as much. The other day I ran in to her and after talking for a while she said, “I can’t believe you liked me when we first met. I was so clueless back then”.
    Yeah. Imagine that.
    At the end of the day, her career has brought her a nice car and a shoebox-sized, stupidly-overpriced condo in a really nice part of town. She’s single and she has a fat ass. And she’s still in love with her boss — who’s married and treats her like the plate she is. I give her a 1 in 5 for ever getting married. She’s at best a 7 — closer to a 6 really. And she’s 29 and not dating anyone.
    Nice work, sweetheart.

    1. I prize a woman who has ambition. Ambition to have my home turned into a quality place for family, and area for entertaining guests. My wife does both.
      However, I suspect that the cat is out of the bag. What I mean is, until the consumer culture collapses, women will have to work. The feminists have done their sick and perverse work well. Now women are unhappy, and men only have sluts to deal with. On the one hand, it provides for a lot of temporary pleasure. On the other, it is an endless series of drama jumping from one damaged “princess” to the next.
      Back then, fathers and mothers demanded their sons marry, and marry them young. It was not for love, but survival. A war could break out at any time. Men often could claim that by just having a marriage, they could opt out of war since they had no time to produce a son. So, no sooner did they have one, off to the army they went. It also helps explain I think why so many women did not care much if he had children by a mistress or two. The more sons he had, especially if he owned a farm, the better his chances. Especially since child birth often negated the wife doing the birthing.
      With modern medicine, and the pill, women are now stuck. Having turned their nose up at the past traditions, they are thoroughly stuck in the current hook up culture. I don’t think their political vote is going to get them out of it.
      They are going to have to stop litigating their men, and start communicating with them. Something they are wont to do.

  3. Preschool isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My son started school at the age of three, yes a student from that age, and is, at the age of sixteen, well on the way to his chosen career.

    1. True, but I suspect that his parent(s) were regularly involved were they not?
      The reason so many children, especially boys struggle now is because one parent cannot possibly juggle everything that two people of equal value can. Why children of broken homes struggle so much?
      Loss of fathers. My sons have so much more going for them than I did.

      1. He’s also highly motivated and very intelligent. When he was four years old I saw him make something from instructions in a school book. I suspect he’s going to go far.

  4. ‘I bet she gave him anal like all the time.’
    Jeez. What’s this bloody fascination of dipping your cock into human orifices filled with excrements?

  5. I am such of fan of these historical and literature related posts. The analysis that goes into them and the presentation draws me in immediately. I especially like the interweaving of Red Pill theory and ideas with these classics because they have made me strive to see where I can apply RP ideas in everything I do. And I am realizing that RP is applicable in EVERYTHING we do. As well as everything we watch in the media.
    I just thought back to an episode of Hey Arnold where Helga’s mom decides to become a cut-throat business woman and it shows how going to the extreme of this path leads to a lot of difficulties and straight up warping of the home environment. Granted, I’m using a (good) cartoon as an example but I think the idea is solid.
    Anyway I would like to thank you for introducing me to the Economist and Xenophon. Hope you continue writing.

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