In thePolitics, Aristotle maintains, contrary to his predecessors, that there is a distinctive mode of authority that husbands should exercise over their wives. He even coins a word for it: γαμιϰή, ‘the marital art’ or ‘marital rule’ (Pol. 1.3, 1253b8–10; 1.12, 1259a37–9). Marital rule is supposed to differ from the authority that fathers have over their children and from the kind of rule that citizens exercise over one another. Yet it is not clear whether there is any conceptual space between (...) political and paternal rule for marital rule to occupy. Where fathers rule and children are ruled, citizens take turns ruling and being ruled. Husbands, however, either share their rule with their wives, or they do not. If they do not, then marital rule seems indistinct from paternal rule; if they do, then it seems indistinct from political rule. To add to the confusion, Aristotle says that husbands properly rule their wives politically, but without alternating in positions of ruling and being ruled. On its face, this idea seems flatly contradictory. Political rule just is shared, reciprocal rule, and so if the husband rules permanently and his wife is merely ruled, then his rule cannot be political. So Aristotle's own description of marital rule appears inconsistent, and in any case it is difficult to see how marital rule could have the distinctive character that he insists it does. (shrink)

Ground breaking in many ways, Richard Bodéüs’ influential book,Le philosophe et la cité, published in 1982 (The Political Dimensions of Aristotle's Ethics, 1993), offers a reinterpretation of the complex notion of phrónēsis. In the same line of inquiry, this article analyzes one of the more modest forms of phrónēsis, namely economy, more specifically the part of economy that involves the relationship with unfree people. The Aristotelian views on the master-slave relationship are put into perspective in light of Bodéüs’ observations on (...) command. This approach leads to pointing out the full meaning of the concept of servility, which is deeper than is generally recognized, allowing readers to grasp how “in many respects human nature is servile,” according to theMetaphysics(A, 2, 982b29-30). (shrink)