“Then is not the first thing that we have to agree upon with regard to these proposals whether they are possible or not? And we must throw open the debate¹ to anyone who wishes either in jest or earnest to raise the question 453a whether female human nature is capable of sharing with the male all tasks or none at all, or some but not others,² and under which of these heads this business of war falls. Would not this be that best beginning which would naturally and proverbially lead to the best end³?” “Far the best,” he said. “Shall we then conduct the debate with ourselves in behalf of those others⁴ so that the case of the other side may not be taken defenceless and go by default⁵?” 453b “Nothing hinders,” he said. “Shall we say then in their behalf: “There is no need, Socrates and Glaucon, of others disputing against you, for you yourselves at the beginning of the foundation of your city agreed⁶ that each one ought to mind as his own business the one thing for which he was fitted by nature?” “We did so agree, I think; certainly!” “Can it be denied then that there is by nature a great difference between men and women?” “Surely there is.” “Is it not fitting, then, that a different function should be appointed 453c for each corresponding to this difference of nature?” “Certainly.” “How, then, can you deny that you are mistaken and in contradiction with yourselves when you turn around and affirm that the men and the women ought to do the same thing, though their natures are so far apart?” Can you surprise me with an answer to that question?” “Not easily on this sudden challenge,” he replied: “but I will and do beg you to lend your voice to the plea in our behalf, whatever it may be.” “These and many similar difficulties, Glaucon,” said I, 453d “I foresaw and feared, and so shrank from touching on the law concerning the getting and breeding of women and children.” “It does not seem an easy thing, by heaven,” he said, “no, by heaven.” “No, it is not,” said I; “but the fact is that whether one tumbles into a little diving-pool or plump into the great sea he swims all the same.” “By all means.” “Then we, too, must swim and try to escape out of the sea⁷ of argument in the hope that either some dolphin⁸ will take us on its back or some other desperate rescue.” 453e “So it seems,” he said. “Come then, consider,” said I, “if we can find a way out. We did agree that different natures should have differing pursuits and that the nature of men and women differ. And yet now we affirm that these differing natures should have the same pursuits. That is the indictment.” “It is.”

Socrates “What a grand⁹ thing, Glaucon,” said I, 454a “is the power of the art of contradiction¹⁰!” “Why so?” “Because,” said I, “many appear to me to fall into it even against their wills, and to suppose that they are not wrangling but arguing, owing to their inability to apply the proper divisions and distinctions to the subject under consideration. They pursue purely verbal oppositions, practising eristic, not dialectic on one another.” “Yes, this does happen to many,” he said; “but does this observation apply to us too at present?” 454b “Absolutely,” said I; “at any rate I am afraid that we are unawares¹¹ slipping into contentiousness.” “In what way?” “The principle that natures not the same ought not to share in the same pursuits we are following up most manfully and eristically¹² in the literal and verbal sense but we did not delay to consider at all what particular kind of diversity and identity¹³ of nature we had in mind and with reference to what we were trying to define it when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same.” “No, we didn’t consider that,” he said. 454c “Wherefore, by the same token,” I said, “we might ask ourselves whether the natures of bald¹⁴ and long-haired men are the same and not, rather, contrary. And, after agreeing that they were opposed, we might, if the bald cobbled, forbid the long-haired to do so, or vice versa.” “That would be ridiculous,” he said. “Would it be so,” said I, “for any other reason than that we did not then posit likeness and difference of nature in any and every sense, but were paying heed solely to the kind of diversity 454d and homogeneity that was pertinent¹⁵ to the pursuits themselves?” “We meant, for example, that a man and a woman who have a physician’s¹⁶ mind have the same nature. Don’t you think so?” “I do.” “But that a man physician and a man carpenter have different natures?” “Certainly, I suppose.”

“Similarly, then,” said I, “if it appears that the male and the female sex have distinct qualifications for any arts or pursuits, we shall affirm that they ought to be assigned respectively to each. But if it appears that they differ only in just this respect that the female bears 454e and the male begets, we shall say that no proof has yet been produced that the woman differs from the man for our purposes, but we shall continue to think that our guardians and their wives ought to follow the same pursuits.” “And rightly,” said he.

“Then, is it not the next thing to bid our opponent tell us 455a precisely for what art or pursuit concerned with the conduct of a state the woman’s nature differs from the man’s?” “That would be at any rate fair.” “Perhaps, then, someone else, too, might say what you were saying a while ago, that it is not easy to find a satisfactory answer on a sudden,¹⁷ but that with time for reflection there is no difficulty.” “He might say that.” “Shall we, then, beg the raiser of such objections to follow us, 455b if we may perhaps prove able to make it plain to him that there is no pursuit connected with the administration of a state that is peculiar to woman?” “By all means.” “Come then, we shall say to him, answer our question. Was this the basis of your distinction between the man naturally gifted for anything and the one not so gifted—that the one learned easily, the other with difficulty; that the one with slight instruction could discover¹⁸ much for himself in the matter studied, but the other, after much instruction and drill, could not even remember what he had learned; and that the bodily faculties of the one adequately served¹⁹ his mind, 455c while, for the other, the body was a hindrance? Were there any other points than these by which you distinguish the well endowed man in every subject and the poorly endowed?” “No one,” said he, “will be able to name any others.” “Do you know, then, of anything practised by mankind in which the masculine sex does not surpass the female on all these points?²⁰ Must we make a long story of it by alleging weaving and the watching of pancakes 455d and the boiling pot, whereon the sex plumes itself and wherein its defeat will expose it to most laughter?” “You are right,” he said, “that the one sex²¹ is far surpassed by the other in everything, one may say. Many women, it is true, are better than many men in many things, but broadly speaking, it is as you say.” “Then there is no pursuit of the administrators of a state that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a man because he is a man. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women naturally share in all pursuits and men in all— 455e yet for all the woman is weaker than the man.” “Assuredly.” “Shall we, then, assign them all to men and nothing to women?” “How could we?” “We shall rather, I take it, say that one woman has the nature of a physician and another not, and one is by nature musical, and another unmusical?” “Surely.”

“Can we, then, deny that one woman is naturally athletic 456a and warlike and another unwarlike and averse to gymnastics?” “I think not.” “And again, one a lover, another a hater, of wisdom? And one high-spirited, and the other lacking spirit?” “That also is true.” “Then it is likewise true that one woman has the qualities of a guardian and another not. Were not these the natural qualities of the men also whom we selected for guardians?” “They were.” “The women and the men, then, have the same nature in respect to the guardianship of the state, save in so far as the one is weaker, the other stronger.” “Apparently.” 456b

“Women of this kind, then, must be selected to cohabit with men of this kind and to serve with them as guardians since they are capable of it and akin by nature.” “By all means.” “And to the same natures must we not assign the same pursuits?” “The same.” “We come round,²² then, to our previous statement, and agree that it does not run counter to nature to assign music and gymnastics to the wives of the guardians.” 456c “By all means.” “Our legislation, then, was not impracticable or utopian,²³ since the law we proposed accorded with nature. Rather, the other way of doing things, prevalent today, proves, as it seems, unnatural.” “Apparently.” “The object of our inquiry was the possibility and the desirability²⁴ of what we were proposing.” “It was.” “That it is possible has been admitted.” “Yes.” “The next point to be agreed upon is that it is the best way.” “Obviously.” “For the production of a guardian, then, education will not be one thing for our men and another for our women, especially since 456d the nature which we hand over to it is the same.” “There will be no difference.” “How are you minded, now, in this matter?” “In what?” “In the matter of supposing some men to be better and some worse,²⁵ or do you think them all alike?” “By no means.” “In the city, then, that we are founding, which do you think will prove the better men, the guardians receiving the education which we have described or the cobblers educated by the art of cobbling²⁶?” “An absurd question,” he said. 456e “I understand,” said I; “and are not these the best of all the citizens?” “By far.” “And will not these women be the best of all the women?” “They, too, by far.” “Is there anything better for a state than the generation in it of the best possible women²⁷ and men?” “There is not.”