Musonius Rufus, Lectures 14.3

Is it not then plain that He wished the two to be united and live together, and by their joint efforts to devise a way of life in common, and to produce and rear children together, so that the race might never die?

Tell me, then, is it fitting for each man to act for himself alone or to act in the interest of his neighbor also, not only that there may be homes in the city but also that the city may not be deserted, and that the common good may best be served?

If you say that each one should look out for his own interests alone, you represent man as no different from a wolf or any other of the wildest beasts that are born to live by violence and plunder, sparing nothing from which they may gain some advantage, having no part in a life in common with others, no part in cooperation with others, no share of any notion of justice.

Back in high school, I once got yelled at by a teacher for asking whether Catherine the Great was perhaps just a bit too ambitious. I honestly did not expect all the venom that was spit my way.

“Would you say that about her if she was man? I bet you admire all the drive in Napoleon, but not in her, right? You do realize that all of us are looking out for our own success, and it disgusts me when you deny it to a woman!”

I was a bit stunned for a moment, but for once I had the sense to respond without losing my temper.

“No, the ambition I’m talking about is a form of vainglory, not any sort of worthy achievement. No, it has nothing to do with her sex. No, I have little respect for Napoleon either, and if you’d read the last paper I wrote for you would know that. No, I do not believe that success should ever be a matter of selfishness, whether for a man or for a woman.”

You could cut the air with a knife, and no further words were ever said about it, though I did get the evil eye for the next few weeks.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t much care for the whole “look out for Number One” attitude I see around me each and every day. Perhaps the confusion came from my admittedly old-fashioned use of the term “ambitious”, and it is probably best to define what our true ambitions are to begin with.

But once you tell me that your ambition is to make more money, or to win more fame, or to gain more power over others, I have learned something very important. It is then about one person alone, at the expense of other people. One is the end, and the others are the means.

I know it may not be the acceptable thing to say, but any ambition that is at the expense of my neighbors is no longer a virtue; it has now become a vice.

Where do we get this idea that virtue, the highest human good, must be compromised for the sake of what is lesser? Why do we think that some must fall so that others might rise? This can only happen when we have incomplete goals, where we fail to see that the good of the one and the many are inexorably joined together.

And so it is with all things, as big as international politics and as small as the family. Once love, at any level, is just about what it does for me, it is no longer love at all. There can be no balance sheet of giving and receiving, only the total awareness that all is shared in common.

The love between a husband a wife must also be like that, as well as the love between a parent and a child. Any and all individual merits exist in the service of the whole, never to the exclusion of the whole.

“Don’t wolves have offspring too, and don’t they form packs to live?” Certainly, but lacking reason and choice, they do so out of an instinct, and not out of judgment. They also act for survival alone, and not for virtue or for justice. For all the wonderful things about a wolf, a man should not be a wolf.

In the simplest of terms, it does not befit men to fight one another over a piece of meat, as much as it might befit wolves.

Crates was made for Hipparchia, and Hipparchia was made for Crates. Man was made for woman, and woman was made for man. It comes down to an awareness of character over convenience.

Catherine or Napoleon? No thank you, not the women or men I have in mind.

Written in 1/2000

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 14.2

How, then, can we, who have a home to start with and some of us even have servants to work for us, venture to say that marriage is a handicap for philosophy?

Now the philosopher is indeed the teacher and leader of men in all the things that are appropriate for men according to Nature, and marriage, if anything, is manifestly in accord with Nature.

For, to what other purpose did the Creator of mankind first divide our human race into two sexes, male and female, then implant in each a strong desire for association and union with the other, instilling in both a powerful longing each for the other, the male for the female and the female for the male?

Crates and Hipparchia could find love in marriage, because they understood what was necessary, and they were quite willing to dispense with anything that was merely a supplement, however preferable it might have seemed.

I constantly remind myself that a Stoic Turn is not some cosmetic change in life, and that my priorities will have to be modified to the core. If Crates and Hipparchia can pull it off, then I can do so as well, and so can the rest of us, who usually have at least some property to our names.

They could do it with nothing outside of themselves, precisely because they knew what was going on inside of themselves.

I may be tempted to renounce the world entirely so that I can live a philosophical life, but that would be a terrible mistake. I may not be of the world, but I am most certainly in the world. Where is the merit of any thinking without the presence of any doing?

What could be more natural, more in harmony with my very humanity, than learning to care for another without conditions? What greater teacher could there be than one who lives out all of those noble ideals, and actually manages to put them into practice?

If I only look closely and honestly, I will see that Nature does nothing in vain, and that everything is intended for a deeper order. Male and female are, by their very definition at the level of both body and soul, made for one another. The love they can share between themselves is then also the very origin of new life, the passing on of that gift of love.

Aren’t male and female, in a certain sense, opposites? Yes, but like all contraries their interaction can lead to something greater, and each is thereby a complement to the other. I only become fully myself when I embrace something quite different than myself, recognizing that who I am is balanced by and with another.

I suppose I have always been a sentimental fool, and even years of steeling myself, and of honing my reason, have not removed that basic disposition. I realize, however, that it does not need to be removed at all, only tempered. It is part of who I am to feel, yet how I feel can only be given meaning and purpose by the guidance of my judgments.

Do I wish to be “in love”? There is no shame in that. There is only shame in making it a circumstance instead of a choice, something that happens to me instead of something that I choose to do. Above all else, none of my passions will make any sense without an informed conscience.

I am no Crates, and though she is by far the better half, my wife is no Hipparchia. We stumble through life, while it is only examples like Crates and Hipparchia that give us direction. Intense feeling alone will destroy; guided by intense conviction it redeems.

Written in 1/2000

IMAGE: Crispijn van den Queborn, Hipparchia and Crates (1643)

Hipparchia of Maroneia

As a reference for Musonius Rufus, Lectures 14.1:

As a younger man, I was always drawn to the beauty of physical form, as most young men are, yet even then it meant nothing to me without charm and intelligence. Wink at me all that you like, and give me all those come-hither looks, and you will only be attractive to me if there is something behind the makeup and the posing.

I still messed it all up, however, since I still wasn't looking deeply enough. Can you speak with clever words? Can you recite Homer, or Shakespeare, or the Bhagavad Gita to me? Wonderful, but that is just another set of impressions. 

I once fell head over heels for a girl who had long black curly hair, and was wearing a flowing hippie dress with strappy sandals. No, that alone didn't do it for me. This did:

"Hi, my name in Hindi means 'star'."

That was what made me swoon. Yes, say it with me: I-D-I-O-T. She turned out to be a nice lass, but I desired her for all the wrong reasons, and I had absolutely nothing to offer her. She lost interest in me almost as quickly as she had appeared. 

Charm and intelligence are not nearly the same thing as character. There is a world of difference between the skills we happen to have and the merit of the choices we decide to make. The one is an accident of time and place, the other a reflection of our true identity. 

To look into someone's soul is not to see the trivialities; it is to appreciate the beauty of their virtues. I do not mean to sound crude, but there is really nothing "sexier" for me than a woman who has a genuine conscience. I had to learn that the hard way, after many failures, but I did finally learn it. 

What may be discussed in a college classroom has become increasingly restrictive, in a weird sort of neo-puritanical way, but I did once allow a group of talkative students to bicker among themselves about who was the most "beautiful" person in human history. I justified it on the grounds that we had started our conversation with Helen of Troy. 

I drifted off, but I was inevitably asked what my answer would be. 

Ingrid Bergman, playing Ilsa, as she walks into Rick's Café for the first time? No, not even that. 

"My answer is Hipparchia of Maroneia. End of discussion."

See, I'm not as stupid as I may at first appear. I made them curious. 

"Who is this Hipparchia? Was she more seductive than Helen? Classier that Ingrid Bergman? Spicier than Jennifer Lopez?"

"Absolutely. She is the best woman I've ever learned anything about, barring the Virgin Mary herself. You want class? She came from money, and gave it all up to live with Crates, a poor philosopher, because he shared her values. You want a strong woman? She had to convince him to marry her, because he didn't think he was good enough for her. You want seductive? Her soul was so full of conviction, poor Crates could hardly say no."

The most disinterested student in that class, the one who eventually went on to the seminary and will probably be made a bishop, was still confused. "Yeah, but was she hot?"

"How do you mean? Was she overweight, or did she have a lisp, or was her nose crooked? I have no idea. I really don't care. I just know that I would have gone to the ends of the earth for a woman like that."

"Yeah, but was she hot?" I weep for the Church.

I know quite well that many of the stories about Crates and Hipparchia are just that, apocryphal stories. Nevertheless, I would like to think they are at least true in spirit.

Her family, shocked by her interest in such a filthy man, tried to convince Crates to dissuade her. So the philosopher stripped off his meager clothes, and stood there naked, telling her that this was all she would ever have. She was not discouraged at all.

I have long been especially touched by the tale that she took up weaving, and he reproached her for wasting her time on something so vain. No, it turned out there was a deeper reason. She was with child, and there was now a need for such things. Tradition has it that they raised two children together.

Crates apparently gave this advice to Hipparchia about raising a child: 

Let his bath water be cold, his clothes be a cloak, his food be milk, yet not to excess. Rock him in a cradle made from a tortoise shell. . . . When he is able to speak and walk, dress him, not with a sword, as Aethra did with Theseus, but with a staff and cloak and wallet, which can guard men better than swords, and send him to Athens. 

I'm not the only freak to be inspired by her, to fall in love with her. William Penn, of all people, spoke of her as well:

I seek not the Pomp and Effeminacy of this World, but Knowledge and Virtue, Crates; and choose a Life of Temperance, before a Life of Delicacies: For true Satisfaction, thou knowest, is in the Mind; and that Pleasure is only worth seeking, that lasts for ever.

I have an image pinned to my office wall, of a 17th century engraving depicting Crates pointing to his ungainly face, asking why Hipparchia would ever desire it. I look at it whenever I wonder why my own wife would ever desire me.

Where, truly, is the beauty that you seek?

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 14.1

Lecture 14: Is marriage a handicap to the pursuit of philosophy?

Again when someone said that marriage and living with a wife seemed to him a handicap to the pursuit of philosophy, Musonius said that it was no handicap to Pythagoras, nor to Socrates, nor to Crates, each of whom lived with a wife, and one could not mention better philosophers than these.

Crates, although homeless and completely without property or possessions, was nevertheless married; furthermore, not having a shelter of his own, he spent his days and nights in the public porticoes of Athens together with his wife.

For many in the current fashion, marriage is merely a social accessory, and so what Musonius has to say here may seem quite strange. Yet even for my parents’ or grandparents’ generations, where marriage was seen as being far more fundamental, his attitude would be equally baffling.

I suggest that this is because Musonius is working from a very different moral standard, one where human worth is not determined by convenience or utility. The Stoic sees all things through virtue, and then estimates all other aspects of his life from that measure.

In the two previous lectures, Musonius has defined human sexuality from the order of Nature, and so as something that goes far beyond the desires for pleasure or profit. Male and female exist first for the sake of perfect friendship, a total giving of self, and then by extension for the sake of the bearing and the raising of children.

A very progressive professor of mine once told us that marriage was really only worth it if it was “fun”. “Hey, if you’re not getting anything out of it, it’s time to move on! Trust me, don’t waste your time on someone who’s going to drag you down. If it’s keeping you from being you, walk away!”

This troubled me deeply, though all I knew about love back then was in my own romantic musings. Still, I wondered how it was any sort of commitment at all, if the commitment depended on my own sense of gratification.

“Drop” people? “Walk away” from them? Wasn’t the “being me” part of any friendship necessarily joined to the love of another?

I also remember how, when I was at the ripe old age of ten or eleven, my great-grandfather gave me a talk about finding a good wife. I should be older, he advised, well into my thirties, because a man needed to build up some income and property before he could take on a family.

She should be younger, he added, because women acquire a sense of responsibility long before us men can manage it, and her vitality would be a blessing both for me and for our children.

“But what if I’m younger, and poor, and I love her? Do I need to have money? What if she’s older, or maybe she’s sick or something? Can I still marry her?”

He laughed, and he smiled that big smile I miss so much, and he rolled his eyes. “Well, that’ll happen too. Then you can only make sure it’s love, and not just your pecker talking.”

I always listened, though I was never entirely satisfied with the options put on the table. The professor said it required satisfaction, and Pipa said it required security. Those are certainly preferable things, but are they necessary things for love to be present? Doesn’t character trump conditions, at any time or in any place?

My sense of romance has taken many blows over the years, and yet I can still somehow manage to stick with my original convictions:

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

Would it be easier for me if my wife was never sick, or never despondent, or never angry? Would it be easier for her if I made a million dollars, or was always affectionate, or managed to constantly think of her feelings before I wallowed in my own?

Of course, it would be easier, but easier is not the same thing as better. Put all of those circumstances into place, and we still wouldn’t have love. Love works through the circumstances, and it does not arise from them.

Maybe I should just avoid this whole friendship thing, this whole love thing, this whole marriage thing. I want to be a good person first and foremost, a kind and just person, and perhaps such things are just distractions.

Fool, don’t you see that those are the very means by which you will be able to become good, kind, and just? How can you be a philosopher if you are unwilling to give of yourself completely?

Crates of Thebes, one of the Cynic philosophers, and the teacher of Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, took his values to a place many of us would call rather extreme. He gave away all of his money, and he abandoned all desire for worldly gain.

And yet he married, finding love with a woman who embraced his longing for virtue, above all else, as her own. Hipparchia of Maroneia joined him in his vocation.

“But how can I love her, and how can she love me, if I have nothing? What will become of us without money?”

You have all that you need to love her, and she has all that she needs to love you. You own yourselves, and now you also possess one another, joined together in an even greater strength. What else could ever be required?

Most would call that a perverse sense of romance; I am still so moved by the story that it will, in a private moment, bring me to tears. 

Written in 1/2000 

IMAGE: Crates and Hipparchia