Abstract
This chapter scrutinizes the roles of gender, sexuality, and marriage in early Stoic political utopias. This chapter discusses the early Stoic utopias as idealizations of what a perfectly virtuous state or community would be like; as contra-factual arguments or “thought experiments” rather than actual suggestions that imply any kind of real political reform. The first subchapter discusses the abolishment of marriage and other traditional social institutions in the Stoic utopia, and proposes that sexual freedom would have prevailed among the sages of the utopian society. Plato’s Republic, the Cynics, and the early Stoics all promoted a polygamous ideal, formulated as “holding women in common”.
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Notes
- 1.
For a doxographic study on the textual material on early Stoic philosophy and an attempt to reconstruct the historical background of this material, see Schofield (1991: 3–21).
- 2.
Also, Katja Vogt suggests that one possible way of reading the statement that the ideal state had no temples is to understand it as conditional: “if people were genuinely pious, there would be no need to build temples” (2008: 33).
- 3.
Of the mentioned institutions, I find sport arenas the most difficult to understand. I can see how no courts or temples in a Stoic utopia would indicate that the corresponding institutions of conventional law and religion were not needed. The sages would obey the natural law and realize their divine nature by living by logos, which humans share with gods. Thus, according to my reading, the point is to show that the conventional institutions were radically different from the natural order (here, again, is the juxtaposition between nomos and physis), and that one does not become virtuous by obeying laws, any more than one becomes pious just by going to the temple. But why should there be no gymnasia? Why should the sages not take care of their health and bodily condition? One possible explanation could be that sport arenas here represent military education, in the same way as I take the court to represent the law institution and the temple to represent institutionalized religion. After all, this was one of the reasons why the guardians of Plato’s Republic received sport education. Thus, the Stoics may not have been against sports as such (at least in its noncompetitive forms), but against educating people to become soldiers. This reading is necessarily speculative given the lack of original sources, but it would make sense of the passage and fit together with the general framework of early Stoic utopias.
- 4.
In the passage from DL VII: 131 quoted above, Diogenes Laertius mentions Plato and the Cynics as the predecessors of the Stoic view. Unfortunately, we lack the original sources that could prove this claim.
- 5.
Cf. Brad Inwood, who draws a parallel between the Stoics and Plato’s Symposium (cf. Chap. 10). Inwood claims that “the earliest Stoics all shared Plato’s interest in developing a model for an ideally stable society governed in accordance with principles of unity, cohesion and virtue” (1997: 58). For reasons specified in this chapter, I tend to emphasize that the Stoics were utterly uninterested in thinking about questions concerning “governing” the utopian state, and that the philosophical questions at the bottom of Plato’s and the Stoics’ ideal societies are essentially different.
- 6.
On the Cynic influence on the Stoic theses, see Katja Vogt (2008: 20–29). She also mentions, even if only in parenthesis, that even though Plato also argues for the community of women, this “by no means makes Zeno a follower of Plato” (2008: 27; cf. 33). I agree with this reading, for reasons I wish to demonstrate in this chapter.
- 7.
Cf. Elizabeth Asmis, who claims that the early Stoic thinkers advocated women’s “equality as sex objects,” that is, “(a)ny woman is equal to any other woman or man as a sexual partner” (Asmis 1996: 69). Later, she claims that men and women should be understood equally as both sexual subjects and objects (ibid.: 92). However, like Schofield, she does not comment on the asymmetry of the Stoic formulation of “common ownership” and does not enter into a detailed discussion of why she believes that the Stoics considered sexual relations to be both symmetrical and reciprocal.
- 8.
The image of theater as common property also appears in Cicero’s De Finibus: 3.62–68. Julia Annas makes an interesting point on the theater-seat analogy in pointing out that the seating arrangements were different in Greek and Roman theaters: “While the Greek theater was like a modern one as far as seating arrangements went, the Roman theatre was organized strictly on class lines: you could sit only in the part of the theatre assigned to people of your social standing. It thus comes to serve as an analogy for more restrictive implications of property-owning than it originally did.” (Annas 1993: 308–309).
- 9.
I agree here with Katja Vogt who claims that the formulation “to hold women in common” might just be the expression used to denote “any Zenonian claim on how sexual relations among unmarried partners are not shameful” (2008: 33).
- 10.
Gretchen Reydams-Schils, however, seems to think that there is a real contradiction in early Stoic views on marriage: they were both against it and in favor of it. She is clearly dissatisfied with Malcolm Schofield’s solution, but does not explicitly argue against it in order to show what she takes to be the problem with it. Moreover, she does not provide any alternative reading of how these two claims, that the Stoic sage both marries and does not marry, go together. For her, it remains a paradox (2005: 145).
- 11.
This reading strategy also sheds light on other elements of early Stoic political thought that do not seem to fit the utopian ideal. For example, according to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno would have stated: “The best form of government they hold to be a mixture of democracy, kingship, and aristocracy (or the rule of the best)” (DL VII: 131; the same idea is also to be found in Cicero’s De Re Publica I.xxxv.55). It does not really make sense that a perfectly wise utopian society would have people in different social roles, particularly as rulers or kings who rule over others. Thus, the idea of a mix of governance modes seems to fit better in a discussion on the best form of government for the existing society (interestingly, this is also how Aristotle formulates his recommendation for aristocracy in Politics IV).
- 12.
On the possible hostility of the sources on early Stoic philosophy, cf. Schofield 1991: 3–21.
- 13.
Katja Vogt calls these controversial elements “disturbing theses” in early Stoicism (2008: 20–64). She groups them together with the marital reform and the abolishing of courthouses, as well as the critique of traditional education. In my reading, however, these claims are connected to different philosophical discussions, and therefore, I would not group them together. The Stoic critique of education in particular, I claim, should be understood in its own right, in the context of their views of character development and virtues. Further, since I have suggested a reading of the early Stoic utopias as thought experiments, it follows that there should not be anything disturbing in the idea that there were no courts, because this follows naturally from the idea that all the citizens were perfectly virtuous and there would thus be no evildoers. Vogt herself remarks later: “Theses such as ‘education is useless’ or ‘temples need not be built’ should be read in the context of thinking about what being educated and piety really are—these are facets for being wise.” (2008: 23). I agree—but precisely for this reason I would not call these theses “disturbing” and in my reading, I do not group them together with the alleged approvals of incest and anthropophagy.
- 14.
Diogenes Laertius’ anecdote about the Stoic Thrasonides, who never touched the woman he was in love with because she detested him, illustrates this point (DL VII: 130).
References
Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Asmis, Elizabeth. 1996. The Stoics on Women. In Feminism and Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julie K. Ward. New York and London: Routledge.
Inwood, Brad. 1997. Why do Fools fall in Love? In Aristotle and After. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, ed. Richard Sorabji, Supplement 68.
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2005. The Roman Stoic—Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Schofield, Malcolm. 1991. The Stoic Idea of the City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vogt, Katja. 2008. Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Appendix
Appendix
Aristotle
- Pol. :
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Politics
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The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation. Jonathan Barnes (revised). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
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De Finibus bonorum et malorum (De Fin)
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De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. H. Rackham (transl.). Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1951.
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De re publica. Oxford Latin Texts. J.G.F. Powell (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.
Diogenes Laertius
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Lives of Eminent Philosophers (DL)
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Diogenis Laertii Vitae philosophorum. Miroslav Marcovich (ed.). Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Vol. 1. Stuttgart-Lipsia: Teubner, 1999–2002.
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Lives of Eminent Philosophers. R.D. Hicks (transl.). Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Epictetus
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Discourses (Disc.)
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Encheiridion (Ench.)
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Discourses and Selected Writings. Christopher Gill (ed.). Robin Hard (transl.). London: J.M. Dent & Vermont, Tuttle/Everyman, 1995.
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Discourses, Books I–IV. W.A. Oldfather (transl.). Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Plato
- Rep. :
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Republic
- Tim. :
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Timaeus
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Platonis Opera (Oxford Classical Texts):
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Vol. 1, ed. E.A. Duke et al. 1995.
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Vol. 2, ed. J. Burnet 1922.
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Vol. 3, ed. J. Burnet 1922.
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Vol. 4, ed. J. Burnet 1922.
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Respublica. ed. S.R. Slings 2003.
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Complete Works. John M. Cooper (ed.). D.S. Hutchinson (associate ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1997.
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Plato in Twelve Volumes. Vol. 5–6, The Republic. Paul Shorey (transl.). London: Heinemann, 1969.
Sextus Empeiricus
- M I–VI :
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Against the learnt (Adversus Mathematicos)
- M XI :
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Against Ethicists
- PH I–III :
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Outlines of Pyrrhonism
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Sexti Empirici Opera. H. Mutschmann and J. Mau (eds.). Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum. Lipsiae: Teubner, 1962.
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Against the Ethicists. Richard Bett (transl.). Oxford: Clarendon University Press, 1997.
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Outlines of Scepticism. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Grahn-Wilder, M. (2018). “Holding Women in Common”—Gender in Early Stoic Utopias. In: Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53694-1_12
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