Xanthippe - Shrew or Saint?
I reflected upon an intense college experience I had had several years before in a philosophy class, I being the only woman in the class. We had begun the Phaedo (which I'm sure that you know is one of the very few references to Xanthippe in all of Plato's works), and we briefly touched on Xanthippe, more as the professor's attempt to validate that Xanthippe's shrewish reputation was about all summed up in that scene. You know the passage (excuse my paraphrasing): "Xanthippe, you know her, she was there, crying and weeping in her womanly way, holding his child on her knee and saying to Socrates "this is the last time that you will speak with your friends or they with you." All of the men in the class read it as her being some weak, whiny, self-absorbed yet sad, somewhat stand-by-her-man yet bitchy at the same time.
I protested on Xanthippe's "behalf" because I had read the passage for class very differently. When I read it, I saw her as frustrated and angry to the point of tears, demanding that this would be the last time that he and his friends would talk together, because this was getting ridiculous - he was going to kill himself for his principles and logic and choose to leave behind a wife and three kids? To remain pure in his logic he would forgo his family, his work, his friends, and his own life? I immediately became the laughing stock of the class, and despite my calm, clear language and protest, I too became the Xanthippe of the class. Suddenly, for speaking my mind and going against several millennia of tradition, I was crazy, irrational, etc.
And then it occurred to me that our western epistemology was founded on this Socratic logic that was faulty at best. It did not allow for the inherent conflicts and hypocrisy that exists in real life, not the perfect little world that Socrates tried to create with his perfect logic. Indeed, I question for one how great he was to have killed himself for his logic instead of quietly renouncing and doing "the right thing" by swallowing his pride and putting his family and others ahead of his ego. And his own logic fails - in order to live by his logic, he had to die, yet in death he is no longer living by his logic. Needless to say, my protest not only created a stir, but also got up the ire of the professor and the other students as I chipped away at their once-firm foundation of absolute truths. And my Socrates of a professor did all that he could for the remainder of the course to prove that he was right by showing how wrong I was.
Here's another passage on Xanthippe (and women) from Xenophon's (Plato's fellow student) Symposium:
Then Socrates: The question would seem at any rate to be debatable. Suppose we defer it till another time, and for the present not interrupt the program of proceedings. I see, the dancing-girl is standing ready; they are handing her some hoops.
And at the instant her fellow with the flute commenced a tune to keep her company, whilst some one posted at her side kept handing her the hoops till she had twelve in all. With these in her hands she fell to dancing, and the while she danced she flung the hoops into the air-- overhead she sent them twirling--judging the height they must be thrown to catch them, as they fell, in perfect time.
Then Socrates: The girl's performance is one proof among a host of others, sirs, that woman's nature is nowise inferior to man's. All she lacks is strength and judgment; and that should be an encouragement to those of you who have wives, to teach them whatever you would want them to know.
Antisthenes rejoined: If that is your conclusion, Socrates, why do you not tutor your own wife, Xanthippe, one of the most difficult women of times past, present, or future?
Well now, I will tell you (he answered). I follow the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft- mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit": in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.
