Musonius Rufus, Lectures 3.4

But above all a woman must be chaste and self-controlled; she must, I mean, be pure in respect of unlawful love, exercise restraint in other pleasures, not be a slave to desire, not be contentious, not lavish in expense, nor extravagant in dress. Such are the works of a virtuous woman, and to them I would add yet these: to control her temper, not to be overcome by grief, and to be superior to uncontrolled emotion of every kind.

Now these are the things that the teachings of philosophy transmit, and the person who has learned them and practices them would seem to me to have become a well-ordered and seemly character, whether man or woman.

Back in our last year of high school, a fellow seemed quite keen to “set me up” with a girl he knew. I have no idea why he was so motivated in this task, or how he thought this could possibly be a successful match.

I did my best to be as polite as I could, but it was clear to me that no good could ever come from this. “I’m sure she’s very nice,” I said, “but we would hardly get along. She’s never given me the time of day, and she seems to have quite a few other boyfriends already.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t be so sexist! So you somehow think it’s okay for guys to sleep around all they want, but girls need to be all proper? That’s such a double standard!”

“No, you know that I don’t live that way, and so there’s no hypocrisy if I choose not to share my life with people who live that way.”

“Hey, you’d hardly have to share your life with her. You could just have a good time with her.”

“See? There is precisely where we will have to agree to disagree.”

Should a woman practice self-control in her passions? Yes, she will gladly do just that if she judges virtue as the greatest human good. And before all those accusing fingers get pointed, this would be just as true of a good man as of a good woman, or of any person who is of good character. It isn’t a feminine virtue or a masculine virtue—it is a human virtue.

There is, furthermore, no need to assume that temperance, or any of the virtues, is somehow restrictive or repressive. Quite the contrary, it can be something that is truly liberating, because it allowed us to rule ourselves, not to be ruled by our desires. If I look at other people only as objects of gratification, and not as subjects worthy of respect, I have already degraded them, and I have also degraded myself.

I know it seems like such a hopelessly outdated and romantic ideal, especially at a time when we so openly buy and sell sex, but I once took it deeply to heart when someone told me that chastity was never about self-denial, but about self-mastery. Nature made me to give with love, not merely to take with lust.

A passion without wisdom to guide it will always bring out the worst in us. I began to learn that the hard way, by bitter experience, only a few months after that attempted set-up. I suddenly found myself drawn to someone who was so very smart, charming, and sophisticated. I now had the chance to put my principles into real practice, but I ended up bending them so hard that I downright broke them. 

I discovered fairly quickly that she was also dishonest and disloyal, and that her conscience was the last place she looked for inspiration. But surely that would change, if only I stuck with her? I felt so loudly for her that it drowned out my thinking.

My friends frowned and shook their heads. “She will break your heart, just wait! How many more men in her bed will it take before you stop looking the other way? When will you have had enough of her laughing at you behind your back?”

It was too easy to eventually be angry with her, many years later, but that was attention entirely misdirected. She was going to be who she was going to be, but I could decide who I was going to be. Chaste, self-controlled, not a slave to desire? Let me master those virtues myself, instead of worrying about them so much in others. My intemperance, my feeling without thinking, was my problem, not hers. My own weakness, and no one else’s, was the cause of my downfall here.

By all means, I can choose to trust another for being good, but it will make no difference if I can’t first trust myself to be good.

Written in 4/1999

IMAGE: Luca Giordano, Temperance (c. 1686)