Musonius Rufus · Philosophy
In two discourses, Musonius argued that women have the same reason, the same senses, and the same capacity for virtue as men - and therefore need the same philosophical training, and daughters the same education as sons. It is among the boldest arguments for the equality of the sexes in all of ancient thought.
Someone once asked Musonius whether women too should study philosophy - a question that, in first-century Rome, most would have thought answered itself, and in the negative. A woman’s sphere was the household; philosophy was a man’s pursuit. Musonius answered yes, and built an argument so clean that its conclusion still startles. His starting point is a fact he takes to be obvious: women have received from the gods the same power of reason that men have. They have the same senses, the same bodily parts, and - crucially - the same natural inclination toward virtue and the same capacity to acquire it. Women, no less than men, are pleased by good and just actions and repelled by their opposites. If reason and the desire for virtue are shared, Musonius argues, then the discipline that develops them - philosophy - cannot belong to one sex only. To say otherwise would be to say that the very creatures equipped for virtue should be forbidden the training that produces it.
Musonius makes the argument concrete by running through the cardinal virtues and showing that each is needed by a woman as much as by a man. A woman must be temperate - master of her appetites, faithful, free of excess. She must be just - a blameless partner, fair to her household and even to her servants. She must have courage - the courage to endure hardship, to raise her children through difficulty, to refuse to be cowed into shameful conduct by fear. And she must have practical wisdom - for who could manage a house, weigh what is needed, and govern servants well without judgment? Since these are precisely the virtues philosophy cultivates, the woman who studies philosophy is not being pulled away from her proper life but being equipped for it. Musonius turns the traditionalist’s own picture against him: if you want a good wife, a good mother, a good manager of a household, then you want a woman trained in exactly the virtues philosophy teaches.
In a companion discourse Musonius pushed the logic one step further and asked whether daughters should receive the same education as sons. His answer, again, is yes. His reasoning is by analogy: we do not train horses meant for the same work differently by sex, nor dogs; we train each animal according to the task it must perform. Since men and women must both practise the same virtues and live good human lives, their education toward that shared goal should be the same. He anticipates the worry that this means teaching girls exactly the same subjects as boys in every practical detail, and allows that the division of daily labour between the sexes may differ - he still assumes men will do more of the heavy outdoor work and women more of the indoor. But on the essential thing, the formation of a virtuous, reasoning human being, he insists there can be no double standard. A daughter, like a son, is a rational creature who must learn to live well, and the training for living well is one.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that Musonius argued women share men’s reason and capacity for virtue, need the same four virtues, and therefore should study philosophy - and that daughters deserve the same education as sons. Explain the argument, and note where his radicalism stopped short.
Leads to Mary Wollstonecraft.
Begin this lesson →epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.