A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

284 Greek Life and Thought
She is ready
to learn.
Woman's
nature different
from
man's.
Woman created
for in-
\ooT work.
Isch. Most certainly, with many a vow registered to
heaven to become all she ought to be; and her whole manner
showed that she would not be neglectful of what was
taught her,
Soc. Pray narrate to me, Ischomachus, I beg you, what
you first essayed to teach her. To hear that story would
please me more than any description of the most splendid
gymnastic contest or horse-race you could give me, . . .
(In instructing his wife Ischomachus explains:)
"But whereas both of these, the indoor and the outdoor
occupations alike, demand new toil and new attention, to
meet the case," I added, "God made provision from the
first by shaping as it seems to me, the woman's nature for
indoor and the man's for outdoor occupations. Man's
body and soul He furnished with a greater capacity for
enduring heat and cold, wayfaring and military marches,
or to repeat, He laid upon his shoulders the outdoor works.
" While in creating the body of woman with less capacity
for these things," I continued, "God would seem to have
imposed upon her the indoor works; and knowing that He
had implanted in the woman and imposed upon her the
nurture of new-born babes. He endowed her with a larger
share of affections for the new-born child than He bestowed
upon man. And since He had imposed upon
woman the guardianship of the things imported from
without, God, in His wisdom, perceiving that a fearful
spirit was no detriment to guardianship, endowed the
woman with a larger measure of timidity than He bestowed
upon man. Knowing further that he to whom the
outdoor works belonged would need to defend them
against malign attack, He endowed the man in turn with
a larger share of courage.
"And seeing that both alike feel the need of giving and