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Book II Chapter 7

Household Management and Politics

The matters concerning the virtues have been adequately distinguished, and almost all the main topics of ethics have been taken up. It is necessary next to discuss household management and politics as well,⁷²⁹ since a human being is by nature a political animal.⁷³⁰

The First Community

The first political community is the union of a man and a woman according to law, for the begetting of children and the sharing of life.⁷³¹ This is called a household, and is the beginning of a city; we must therefore speak of it.⁷³²

From Households to a City

The household seems to be a small city of a sort, if indeed, as the marriage prospers as one would wish and the children grow and pair with one another, another household is established, and so a third and a fourth, and from these a village and a city.⁷³³ For when several villages came into being, a city was formed.⁷³⁴

Forms of Government in the Household

Thus, just as the household provided the city with the seeds of its coming into being, so too it provided the seeds of its constitution. For there is an outline of kingship, aristocracy, and democracy in the household.⁷³⁵ The form of association between parents and children is royal; between husbands and wives, aristocratic; between children and one another, democratic.⁷³⁶

The Formation of the Household

For the male joins with the female out of a desire for procreation and the continuance of the kind; each desires generation.⁷³⁷ When they have come together and taken an assistant into their association, whether a slave by nature—strong in body for service, but dull and unable to live on his own, for whom being ruled is advantageous—or a slave by law,⁷³⁸ a household is constituted from their coming together and from everyone’s taking thought for a single common advantage.⁷³⁹

Authority and the Parts of Household Management

By nature the man has authority over this household. For the deliberative capacity is inferior in a woman, not yet present in a child, ⟨and⟩ not present at all in slaves.⁷⁴⁰ Practical wisdom in household management, which administers the ⟨household⟩ itself and what belongs to it, is proper to a man.⁷⁴¹ One part is paternal, another marital, another concerned with mastery, and another with acquiring wealth.⁷⁴²

Necessities and Income

For just as an army needs provisions, a city revenues, and a craft tools, so a household needs necessities. These are of two kinds, for living in the more general sense and for living well.⁷⁴³ The household manager must first take thought for these, either increasing income through honorable means of acquisition or reducing expenses; for this is indeed the greatest principle of household management.⁷⁴⁴

Experience and the Acquisition of Wealth

Therefore the household manager ⟨must⟩ also have experience of many things—farming, sheep rearing, and mining—so that he may discern the most profitable and at the same time most just returns.⁷⁴⁵ Of the acquisition of wealth, one kind is better and another worse: that which occurs naturally is better, and that which occurs through retail trade is worse. ⟨And these remarks, then, on household management⟩ suffice.⁷⁴⁶

City and Citizen

The main points concerning politics would be these. First, cities were constituted partly because a human being is naturally social, and partly for advantage.⁷⁴⁷ Next, the city is the most complete association, and a citizen is someone who shares in political authority. A city is a multitude of such people sufficient for a self-sufficient life.⁷⁴⁸

The Limit of the Population

The population must have a limit such that the city is neither without fellow-feeling nor easily despised,⁷⁴⁹ and that it is provided without deficiency with what is needed for life, and adequately with what is needed against invaders from outside.⁷⁵⁰

The Parts of Practical Wisdom

For one part of practical wisdom concerns household management, another legislation, another politics, and another military command.⁷⁵¹ The household part, as I said, administers the ⟨household⟩ itself and what belongs to it; the legislative part [text missing]; ⟨the political part [text missing]; the military part⟩⁷⁵² concerns the study and administration of what is advantageous to an army camp.⁷⁵³

729.Οἰκονομικόν concerns the management of an οἶκος, a household, rather than a modern national economy. Πολιτικόν concerns the πόλις, the city as a political community. Section 26 has no separate summary heading. Its final numerical subdivisions and descriptive labels serve layout only; the exposition is continuous.

730.Πολιτικὸν ζῷον is a political animal, an animal naturally belonging to a city or political community. Wachsmuth compares Aristotle, Politics I.2, 1253a2–3. The statement links the preceding ethical exposition to common life; it does not reduce political activity to the pursuit of office.

731.Πολιτεία here denotes a political community or association; later in this section it denotes a constitution or form of government. The source prints κατὰ νόμον, according to law, not according to nature. Both stated purposes, children and a shared life, remain.

732.Οἶκος means the household constituted by its members and common life, not merely its building. Calling it the beginning of a city prepares the account of the growth from households to villages and cities.

733.The conditional εἴ γε, if indeed, qualifies the comparison. Παίδων is children, and συνδυαζομένων ἀλλήλοις means pairing with one another; the translation does not add a further account of the marriages. The printed ἱφίσταται is an anomalous form. Established gives its contextual sense, without silently replacing the Greek with Meineke’s proposed συνίσταται.

734.The sequence retains household, village, and city, with the final aorist ἀπετελέσθη, was formed. Wachsmuth compares Politics I.2, 1252b15–16 and 28. The passage gives a schematic account of political origins, not a dated history of a particular city.

735.Σπέρματα, seeds, continues the image of political growth; ὑπογραφή is an outline or sketch. The printed phrase εἶναι περὶ τὸν οἶκον is compressed and queried in the apparatus. In the household gives its contextual sense, while the Greek remains as printed.

736.Ἀνδρῶν and γυναῖκας are men and women, here husbands and wives in the household relationship. All three analogies remain in their stated order. Wachsmuth compares Nicomachean Ethics VIII.10–12, 1160b23–25, 32–33 and 1161a3–4. These are the account’s ancient analogies of authority, not a classification of modern family arrangements.

737.Τέκνωσις is procreation, and γένους διαμονή the continuance of the kind or lineage through generation. The text speaks in terms of male and female and ascribes the desire to each. No modern racial category is implied by γένος here.

738.The distinction between a slave by nature and a slave by law belongs to the account’s ancient justification of slavery. Its description of bodily strength, dullness, and supposed inability to live independently is retained as the author’s claim, not an established description of enslaved people. The legal category is distinguished from that alleged natural condition; the passage does not specify a legal route into enslavement.

739.Συνεργός is an assistant or fellow worker, here explicitly an enslaved person, not freely hired staff. Προμήθεια is forethought or provision. The final clause states the common advantage claimed for the resulting household, without changing the unequal status of its members.

740.These assertions of natural hierarchy belong to the ancient account. The local word χεῖρον means inferior or worse. Aristotle’s related statement in Politics I.13, 1260a12–14 instead describes the woman’s deliberative capacity as ἄκυρον, without authority; that wording is not substituted here. The supplied particle ⟨δ’⟩ is represented by and.

741.The supplied ⟨οἴκου⟩ remains bracketed as household. Φρόνησις is practical wisdom, now specified by its household function. The Greek explicitly assigns it to an ἀνήρ, a man; replacing that word with a neutral household manager would conceal the account’s claim.

742.All four parts remain. Δεσποτικόν concerns a master’s authority over enslaved people, distinct here from both paternal and marital authority. Χρηματιστικόν concerns the acquisition of wealth or resources, discussed below; it does not mean every aspect of household management.

743.Κοινότερον ζῆν is living in the more general sense, contrasted with living well. The distinction is between what sustains life as such and what supports a good life, not two unrelated inventories. The analogies preserve the separate needs of army, city, craft, and household.

744.Πορισμοὶ ἐλευθέριοι are means of acquisition befitting a free person, rendered honorable; the adjective does not mean free of charge. The source gives alternatives, increasing receipts or contracting expenditures. Κεφάλαιον here is a leading principle or main point, not financial capital.

745.The supplied ⟨δεῖν⟩ remains bracketed as must. All three activities are retained, including mining. Both superlatives qualify καρποί, returns or yields: the most profitable and the most just. The stated economic criterion is therefore not profitability alone.

746.Καπηλική is retail trade or dealing for resale; the word is not silently broadened to all commerce. The account ranks natural acquisition above it. The entire closing phrase supplied by the editor remains bracketed in both languages, while ἀπόχρη, suffice, is transmitted outside the supplement.

747.Κοινωνικός means social or disposed to association. The two explanations remain joined: natural sociability and advantage. Calling the city the most complete association identifies its scope and sufficiency, rather than denying that a household is also an association.

748.Πολιτικὴ ἀρχή is political authority or office. Citizenship is defined through participation in it, not simply residence within the territory. Αὐτάρκεια here concerns the sufficiency of a political community for life; compare the different definition of an individual ethical state in II.7.25.14.

749.The unusual ἀσυμπαθής literally means without sympathy or shared feeling; without fellow-feeling follows that sense in the context of a political community. Wachsmuth queries the word and records proposed alternatives. The printed Greek is retained rather than replaced with a conjecture about size or disorder.

750.No numerical population is specified. The conditions concern internal cohesion, resistance to contempt, sufficient livelihood, and defense. The invaders are those coming against the city from outside, ἔξωθεν ἐπιόντας; the translation does not turn every outsider into an invader.

751.The four branches of φρόνησις remain distinct. Politics appears both as the wider subject under discussion and as a particular administrative branch beside legislation. The first-person as I said belongs to the exposition; Wachsmuth’s modern locator p. 149, 8–10 is moved out of the Greek body into this note. It refers to the definition translated at II.7.26.6.

752.The source leaves a gap after legislative. Its supplement introduces political with another gap and then military. Both omissions remain explicitly missing, and the entire supplied transition stays within angle brackets in English. The supplied household is likewise bracketed. Definitions are not reconstructed from a parallel Aristotelian text.

753.Στρατοπέδῳ is a singular dative, to an army camp, here the army considered in its organized military setting. The surviving definition includes both θεωρία, study or consideration, and διοίκησις, administration. These explanatory qualifications belong to the note; the missing definitions remain missing.