Plato’s Republic Between Utopia and History

Despite appearances, interpreting Plato’s Republic as abolishing the household (oikos) for the Auxiliaries and the Guardians or treating them as one big household are both perfectly legitimate and actually not mutually incompatible interpretations. [1] Either way, the oikos demonstrably plays a central part in Plato’s thought. It is not an exaggeration to claim that his understanding of it shapes the social, political and economic edifice of the Republic and is inextricably linked with his stand on fundamental questions such as gender, Greekness, the importance of landed property and the modes of its distribution, the value of noble birth, and the epistemic and moral requirements for the exercise of effective political and military leadership.

The question of the relationship between the city and the household is heavily debated in modern literature and is usually addressed in the context of the emergence of the type of community that became known as the city (polis) in archaic Greece. [2] When it comes to this issue, two distinct traditions can be singled out. The first one identifies the polis with the totality of its oikoi and tends to emphasize the synergy of the two rather than their potential diversity of interests. The second sees the household as posing a threat for the unity of the polis, and instead of focusing on the symbiosis between the two, emphasizes their potential opposition. This viewpoint, which decisively favours the city over the household, may be characterized as ‘communitarian’, but one ought to note that in this context communitarianism should be understood as opposed not to individualism, but to the primacy of the oikos. This perspective, often associated with Sparta and Crete, [3] is taken in the Republic to what is, in the historical framework of classical Greece, an unprecedented extreme.

Generally speaking, it is possible to see the household, as understood by most Greeks in Plato’s time, as performing the following three fundamental functions:

• Reproduction.
• Serving as the primary unit of economic production and consumption.
• Providing the moral education, what today might be called socialization, of its younger generation.

Reproduction takes place in a patriarchal [4] framework and the oikos secures the legitimacy of children. Property (primarily in the form of land) is transferred to legitimate male children, whereas female ones in most cities, including Athens, get a dowry. [5] Paternal certainty is critically important in this respect and it is for this reason that in many Greek cities, including Athens, women are married very young and adultery is a public, as opposed to a private, offense. Moreover, for the vast majority of Plato’s Greek contemporaries, passing the family property to one or more of one’s biological male children was one of the most, or possibly even the most, important goal in life. (Plato’s designation of other types of immortality as more significant than immortality through one’s descendants in the Symposium is probably made with this fact in mind). The biggest part of the economic activity that occurs in Greek cities happens within the confines of the household and its land, and this is true not only of agrarian oikoi, but also of urban ones. The norm for a business is to operate from within a house rather than in a public space. Authors of the archaic and classical periods emphasize self-sufficiency (autarkeia), as well as the effort to increase the household resources: augmenting one’s wealth is a traditional attribute of the Greek agathos anēr, the good man who serves as a model in ethical matters, as attested, for example, in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus. [6] Finally, the idea that socialization takes (or should take) place primarily within the household appears to be the ancient Greeks’ majority view on the subject. Nevertheless, an alternative position does exist and actually plays a pivotal part in Plato’s thinking: it is the claim that in a good city the polis ought to take over this role, through a centralized educational system that starts at a very young age. The Spartan agōgē, beginning at seven, is the most well-known and probably the most influential example of this.

The three functions of the oikos are actually interlaced. Its main purpose is to produce male offspring, to whom the family land, or other types of property, will then be passed on. As already noted, handing down the household property to male descendants is culturally desirable, but it is also practically important. In a society lacking welfare, one’s survival in old age depends on one’s male children. [7] A related, and possibly equally significant desideratum is receiving one’s dues through the family cult after death. In general, religion in that period revolves to a considerable extent around the family and a big part of it has to do with the private honouring of one’s ancestors. In this respect, it is much closer to the beliefs and traditions of certain non-European cultures than to modern monotheistic ones.

Given that the household of this era is understood to have as its primary goal to generate new oikoi, the connection between biological reproduction and economic production is evident. Bringing children into the world, and eventually passing on the family property, are actually stages of the same process rather than separate activities. Although they can obviously be signalized, they are inextricably connected. In order for the community to accept these children’s coming to their inheritance, however (an event not the same with a modern property transaction), they should be deemed morally competent to be heads of households (kurioi), as well as decent and acceptable neighbours and fellow-citizens. It is here that their socialization and their ability to develop certain moral virtues or kinds of goodness (aretai) becomes relevant, and a corresponding catalogue of such aretai, among which chastity is paramount, can be compiled for citizen women. This does not have to be a very high bar: in Plato’s Protagoras, the sophist argues that those who lack the relevant types of aretē ought to be killed ‘as a disease of the city’ (322d). When the sophist’s speech is taken in context, it is clear that his claim is that only a tiny minority, men who in Athens would be convicted as criminals, lack the qualities required for living in a city and being kurioi of a household. [8] Clearly, this standard is nowhere near the level of moral excellence that Plato and Aristotle demand of the citizens of their best cities. All three thinkers agree, however, that some level of moral training is necessary for someone to be able to exercise the functions of heading a household and being a passable citizen. [9] This moral education, which is part of what would today be called socialization, is supposed to be provided by the oikos and constitutes its third major role. One consequence of this is that the community at large does have a say in a son’s inheriting of his paternal property. If particularly serious doubts arise about his moral fitness to perform his role as kurios, his transition to this function might be blocked. Having said that, one needs to remember that the norm of patrilinear inheritance was extremely powerful, and that only in the most extraordinary cases pressure would be put on a father to disinherit a son—effectively the point that Protagoras makes. [10]

In the Republic, reproduction for the two highest classes occurs at the group level. Whether one understands Plato to be abolishing the household or extending it to one large family (the whole of the Guardian and Auxiliary classes), he takes the extra step of treating female Auxiliaries and Guardians as fully equal in terms both of their biological contribution to the future members of these classes [11] and their potential for moral achievement. [12] Uniquely for classical antiquity, therefore, patriarchy is abolished in the Republic—albeit, it must be added, only for a minority of the population and in a manner that reinforces rather than delegitimizes other types of domination. [13] Another unique feature of the Republic is that reproduction is controlled by the rulers, and, intriguingly, even involves an element of deceit. [14] The members of the two higher classes do not live in particular households, but eat and sleep together and this includes members of both sexes. There is a connection between these arrangements and the Spartan practice of having married men live in barracks until the age of thirty, but Plato takes the whole idea to an extreme. Moreover, although Spartan women enjoyed more freedom and property rights than Athenian ones, they did not live communally with other women and men. This is a part of Plato’s argument that can be regarded as strongly feminist, because Guardian women control their own bodies, which are inviolable in the same way that in the real world only the bodies of citizen men were, and can move completely freely in public. They do not control their reproductive potential, but neither do Guardian men: members of both sexes are treated identically when it comes to procreation. [15]

Economically productive labour, whether in agriculture or manufacture, is provided by the third class, the Producers, as well as slaves. [16] The producers, who unlike the two higher groups have individual households, sustain them with their labour. The ideal here is that of the leisured landowner who employs overseers for the running of his estate or estates and does not get involved in their management at all, devoting himself to ‘higher’ activities such as the art of war and politics. The only difference between this ideal and its realization in the Republic is that in the latter control of the Producers is exercised collectively rather than individually. [17] Plato’s Guardians engage in philosophical contemplation as well, but this is not part of the traditional concept of the agathos. It is in fact a Platonic innovation and, for its time, a groundbreaking one. Looking at the whole matter from a different angle, since the Producers are allowed absolutely no political participation, their oikoi fulfil only the economic function of the regular Greek household, but not the political one. Conversely, the Guardians, conceived as an extended but unified oikos have a political (and military) role, but not an economic one.

Finally, control of the socialization and moral education of the young is assumed by the city, in the sense of what we would today call the state. The philosopher asks for all the members of the higher classes to share the same emotions in response to the same events and to treat all other members of the group as their siblings or parents. In these respects not only does he follow what I have called above the communitarian tradition, but he also takes this tradition to its furthermost logical conclusion.

During my summer residence at the Center I worked on aspects of my project on Plato’s Republic and the household, and especially on the questions of Plato’s understanding of gender and the relationship between the city and the household. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all the CHS staff members, whose generous support made my stay at the Center an exceptionally productive time.