Pregnancy and motherhood as a civic duty in Plato's political thought

Pregnancy and motherhood as a civic duty in Plato’s political thought

Valeria Sonna

main questions

What is the greek conception on pregnancy and motherhood? From a gender perspective, what did this imply for women at the time, and in what ways does this conception survive in our rhetorics on pregnancy and motherhood today?

pregnancy and motherhood in classical greece

01

Páter and méter

The Greek terms designating father and mother, πάτηρ and μήτηρ, are not symmetrical terms

In the Greek language, as well as in the whole group of Indo-European languages, the vocabulary used to refer to the paternal realm is much richer than that referring to the maternal realm.

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mothers, the household & the city

From the oîkos to the pólis

"...perhaps with a hint of provocation, women are the great victims of the invention of democracy" (Leduc, 1994)

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02

Plato on pregnancy

the Timaeus and the wandering uterus

And in women the wombs (metra) and uteri (hystera) are said for these same reasons [the autocracy of genitals] to be a living thing (zoon) within them that desires (epithumeo) to give birth to children (paidopoíias); whenever this living thing remains unfruitful for too long beyond the due season, it becomes irritated and difficult and wanders (plano) throughout the entire body and blocks off the passages of breath, and by restricting its respiration sends the body into severe difficulties and provides for all sorts of diseases, until the [female] desire and the [male’s] ἔρως bring [these male and female parts] together and, like plucking a fruit from the trees, sow into the womb as if into a tilled field living things (ζῴων ἀποτελέσωσι γένεσιν).

plato, Timaeus 91c-d

the wandering uterus

to birth or not to birth

Women's health depends on their incorporation into the institution of marriage and their correct reproductive performance. This rhetoric, in Loraux’s terms, expresses the ultimate femininity in the equivalence between sickness, love and childbirth. Thus, it cannot be interpreted as random, for it is deeply functional to a patriarchal society where men occupy the place of women's guardians (kyrios). Moreover, it justifies the mainly reproductive function of women as something that responds to natural necessity rather than to a political

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motherhood as a civic duty

the Republic and the Laws

03

The republic

the dissolution of the household

Plato's Republic has been seen by many as the great exception to the Greek civic narrative for granting women access to the magistracies, which has led to see in this dialogue some sort of feminist proposal (cf. Cornford 1941; Smith 1980; Vlastos 1994).

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Sexual difference

01

reduced to biological funtion

Household & offspring

02

Symbolic paternity

03

motherhood

reproduction of social body

You are making childbearing a soft job for the guardians’ women.

Plato, republic, 459d5

the laws

The household is restaured

Plato restaures the household and therefore returns women to the domestic domain. This is considered to be a setback regarding the alleged feminism of Republic. However, it has been emphasized that Plato gives an important place to women in his constitution and contemplates them as subjects before the law (Wender, 1976; Ernoult, 1996).

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03

02

Sexual difference

motherhood

household & offspring

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conclusion

Laws

Republic

the restoring of the household

Gender equality = no household

Women are free of the household. Pregnancy and motherhood are reduced to the reproduction of the social body

The household is restored, but pregnancy and motherhood are recognized in its political function.

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THANKS

• "from the day a man becomes a bridegroom, he will call all offspring born in the tenth month afterward (and in the seventh, of course) his sons, if they are male, and his daughters, if they are female; and they will call him father. Similarly, he will call their children his grandchildren, and they, in turn, will call the group to which he belongs grandfathers and grandmothers. And those who were born at the same time as their mothers and fathers were breeding, they will call their brothers and sisters" (461e)
• The oîkos, therefore equals the entire society (at least for the upper class) (cf. Saïd)
• The extended household grants social cohesion

• The households are evenly distributed: "...let there be five thousand forty landholders (γημόρος) and defenders (ἀμυνοῦντες) of the distribution (νομῇ); and let there be the same division of the land and the households (γῆ δὲ καὶ οἰκήσεις)" (Lg. 737e).
• each man (ἀνὴρ) is paired with an allotment (κλῆρος) (Lg. 737e).
• Also marriage is conceived, not in terms of the family as was the case in Greece, but in terms of the city, to maintain and perpetuate the number of households. It is not a private affair, left to the initiative of the heads of families, but a state affair (Lg. 778; cf. Lacks, pp. 244-245)

• The main hypothesis of the argument is that there is no difference between men and women either in their origin (genesis) or in their nature (phúsis).
• Sexual difference is reduced to biological function in reproduction: the female gives birth (tíktein) and the male begets (ochéuein) (454d10-e1).
• But this difference is considered non-essential, like the difference between the bald man and the man with hair or the difference between the physician and the builder (454c).

The wandering uterus

Plato and the Hippocratic Treatises

• Timaeus abets the idea of the inherently sickly condition of women: if they are not inseminated, run the risk of falling ill.
• The possibility of falling ill has to do with the idea that the uterus is displaced, an idea also present in the Hippocratic Treatises
• the similarities with Timaeus are striking, although the explanation of the Hippocratic physicians proposes a more scientific perspective: the uterus is not represented as an autocratic animal that wanders at will, rather its movements respond to a more mechanical causality (the verb they use is not “”plano”, to wander", which Plato uses in Timaeus, but “strepho”, "to turn" or "to move". In both texts, the cure consists of coitus and, optimally, conception and childbirth (Mul. I.2).

• Women are not confined to the sole role of procreator. Procreation is a civic and religious duty, for women and men equally (Lg. 721a and ff; cf Lacks pp. 243-244).
• The mothers of the city of Laws are first and foremost educators. Plato assigns them an active role in the education of children, which is their exclusive responsibility.
• This education begins during the period of gestation. In the intrauterine period, mothers play a decisive role in the formation of their children (VII, 789a-791e). This approach to the role of women in the formation of the fetus departs from the belief in a purely paternal inheritance.
• great importance is given to early childhood: the infant manifests what it loves and what it hates by means of signs (semeîon) and clues (tekmérion) that only its mothers know how to read and recognize (VII 791e) (Plato is one of the few Greeks who was interested in the education of children at an early age and in realizing the relevance of the role played by mothers for the proper development of the future adult, cf. Ernoult, 2009: 11).

• Guardians are not to possess private property (ousían... idían), nor house (oíkesis) or storehouse (tameîon) of their own (416d-417a)
• Concerning the possession of women (gunaikôn ktêsin), marriage and procreation will be done according to the proverb that the affairs of friends are common (koinà tà phílon) (449d & ff.)
• The structure of this common sharing: "from the day a man becomes a bridegroom, he will call all offspring born in the tenth month afterward (and in the seventh, of course) his sons, if they are male, and his daughters, if they are female; and they will call him father. Similarly, he will call their children his grandchildren, and they, in turn, will call the group to which he belongs grandfathers and grandmothers. And those who were born at the same time as their mothers and fathers were breeding, they will call their brothers and sisters" (461e)
• Marriages (gámos) will be temporal and "...as sacred (hierós) as possible. And sacred marriages will be those that are most beneficial (ophelimótatoi)": to breed the best and in their prime (458e &ff.).
• The oîkos, therefore equals the entire society (at least for the upper class) and the extended household grants social cohesion.

• Offspring be taken by the officials appointed for this purpose (men or women or both) (460b5-10)
• Special nurses who live in a separate part of the city will nurture and raise them (those of inferior parents, or any deformed offspring of the others, they will hide in a secret and unknown place, as is fitting) (460c 1-5).
• The nurses will also take care of the children’s feeding by bringing the mothers to the rearing pen when their breasts are full; will ensure that no mother recognizes her offspring; and take care that the mothers breast-feed the children for only a moderate period of time, and assigning sleepless nights and similar burdens to the nurses and wet nurses (460d)

• Offspring be taken by the officials appointed for this purpose (men or women or both) (460b5-10)
• Special nurses who live in a separate part of the city will nurture and raise them (those of inferior parents, or any deformed offspring of the others, they will hide in a secret and unknown place, as is fitting) (460c 1-5).
• "And won't these nurses will also take care of the children’s feeding by bringing the mothers to the rearing pen when their breasts are full, while devising every device to ensure that no mother will recognize her offspring? And won’t they provide other women as wet nurses if the mothers themselves have insufficient milk—taking care, however, that the mothers breast-feed the children for only a moderate period of time, and assigning sleepless nights and similar burdens to the nurses and wet nurses?" (460d)

The Timaeus' relevance for philosophy of pregnancy

• An embriological theory
• An explanation of reproduction
• The wandering uterus theory

• The mothers of the city of Laws are first and foremost educators. Plato assigns them an active role in the education of children, which is their exclusive responsibility.
• This education begins during the period of gestation. In the intrauterine period, mothers play a decisive role in the formation of their children (VII, 789a-791e). This approach to the role of women in the formation of the fetus departs from the belief in a purely paternal inheritance.

Gender equality

• Equality of natures underlies the decision to give women equal rights with men and to assign them the same tasks in war and in the administration of the city (451e).
• Accordingly, they are given access to education, the right to free social interaction and, albeit under certain conditions, to free choice of sexual partner. Rights of which Athenian women contemporary to Plato were deprived.

Of woman born?

It is sual to find in Greek literature the expression of the male desire to be able to do without women and, in particular, to be able to do without them for reproduction.

• In mythology. There are numerous examples of characters born without a mother. It seems ironic, for example, that Pandora, the first woman, is not born of woman but is manufactured by Hephaestus. The Athenians themselves can be traced back to an amatric lineage: they are descendants of Ericthonius, who is not born of a mother or any sexual union, but of the semen of Hephaestus, scattered over the earth. The Thebans are also descendants of the earth itself, descendants of the Spartoi, which means sown men, who were born from the teeth of the dragon that Cadmus threw to the earth after killing him. Particularly interesting are also the births of Zeus, who gives birth to two of his children: Athena came out of his head and Dionysus from his thigh.
• In medical thought. According to Censorinus one of the main embryological questions is whether the son is born only from the seed of the father (Diogenes, Hippo and the Stoics) or also from the seed of the mother (Anaxagoras, Alcmeon, Parmenides, Empedocles and Epicurus). Aristotle says the only contribution of the woman to the formation of the fetus is the menstrual fluid, to which he attributes only a nourishing function (On the gen. of animals, 729a, 738b).

• Pater-meter: Women's freedom in the Republic is inversely proportional to the limitation to the male power as sovereign of the household, i.e., as "father".
• Civic duty: women have only one duty as mothers: to give birth to maintain the reproduction of the social body (not the household)
• Consequence 1: the biological and affective bond disappears: Plato thus deprives the female guardians of their role as mothers in order to better integrate them into a mixed social group in which each individual is on equal footing
• Consequence 2: (a) either paternity is totally stripped of its power with the dissolution of the oikos (Vlastos, Smith), or (b) is distributed among all guardians that share the common (koinós) potestas over women and children (Saïd, Ernoult).

• great importance is given to early childhood: the infant manifests what it loves and what it hates by means of signs (semeîon) and clues (tekmérion) that only its mothers know how to read and recognize (VII 791e).
• Plato is one of the few Greeks who was interested in the education of children at an early age and in realizing the relevance of the role played by mothers for the proper development of the future adult (2009: 11).

• The main hypothesis of the argument is that there is no difference between men and women either in their origin (genesis) or in their nature (phúsis).
• Sexual difference is reduced to biological function in reproduction: the female gives birth (tíktein) and the male begets (okhéuein) (454d10-e1).
• But this difference is considered non-essential, like the difference between the bald man and the man with hair or the difference between the physician and the builder (454c).

• There is no term "μήτριος" or "μάτριος", equivalent to "πάτριος", designating the property or domain of the mother.
• While μήτηρ designates the physical mother and is inseparable from the biological bond that unites a woman with her children, πάτηρ is a classificatory term that does not designate "father" in the personal sense. In this original figuration, the relation of physical paternity is excluded (example: the Greek vocative Ζεῦ πάτερ).

• From πάτηερ derive πατριά designating lineage; πάτρα and παττρίς, which originally designated the family clan and then come to designate the fatherland, country or territory; as also πατριώτης "of the same country". In contrast, we find no adjective derived from μήτηρ designating lineage or belonging, much less a territory (Benveniste, 1983, p. 143).
• To refer to "that which belongs to the mother" the term is μητρώιος, the interesting thing is that this adjective is not derived from μήτηρ, "mother," but from "μήτρως," meaning "maternal uncle" and sometimes "maternal grandfather" (Chantraine, 1946, p. 234-235).

• Women no longer share a same phúsis: That race (génos) of us humans (ánthropos) that is by nature more secretive (lathraîos) and cunning (epíklopos) because of its weakness (asthenés)—the female (thêlu)— was incorrectly left in disorder (οὐκ ὀρθῶς … δύστακτον) by the legislator's failure to be firm. (Lg. 781a)
• ...our female nature (ἡ θήλεια ἡμῖν φύσις) is inferior to that of the males as regards virtue (πρὸς ἀρετὴν χείρων τῆς τῶν ἀρρένων)... (Lg 781b)
• So, if this were revised and corrected, if it were ordained that every practice is to be shared in common by women as well as men, it would be better for the happiness of the city. (Lg 781b)

• The concealment of the maternal figure oscillates between the absence of a mother, as in the case of the births of Zeus, and the invisibilization of the woman resulting from the metaphorical association of mother and earth.
• Concerning the metaphor of mother-earth, Loraux argues that these origin stories of the Athenians and Thebans have a political function: the earth is a figure of the homeland, these are autochthony myths that aim to trace the lineage of males directly to the land and give foundation to their place as citizens.
• As a result, women are doubly relegated: on the one hand, their role in reproduction is omitted, and on the other, they are also denied the autochthony that men enjoy, which, as Loraux argues, legitimizes the exclusion of women as citizens.

Plato grants mothers a series of rights of which the Athenians were deprived: (i) to settle intrafamilial conflicts Plato proposes the figure of the "family court" in which the whole family, including women, have a place (IX, 878d); (ii) laws concerning infanticide are equal for the father and the mother (VIII, 873b), (iii) and those punishing matricide are equal to those punishing parricide (IX, 870e-872e).

The household is restored but the legislation over the oikos restricts the power of paternity as guardianship, because it is subordinated to the city, where the true “potestas” resides:

• Civic duty of the mother: (a) reproduction of the social body (equally distributed among men and women); (b) education and nurture (aknowledged and legislated by the city)

• Consequence 1: the biological and affective bond is restaured as well as the household, also the sexual difference (along with the inherent weakness, asthéneia, of the female race or génos)
• Consequence 2: paternity is restaured along wiht the houseold, but its power is restricted to that of the city

Plato grants mothers a series of rights of which the Athenians were deprived: (i) to settle intrafamilial conflicts Plato proposes the figure of the "family court" in which the whole family, including women, have a place (IX, 878d); (ii) laws concerning infanticide are equal for the father and the mother (VIII, 873b), (iii) and those punishing matricide are equal to those punishing parricide (IX, 870e-872e).

• In the model of the "social structure in houses" that preceded the polis (Homer). The household was identified with the man who governed it. He gave recognition to the children by giving them his name, which also implied giving them membership in the oikos. Even the wives of slaves had to present their newborns to this sovereign father of the oîkos to which they belonged. So the infant's "father" was not necessarily his progenitor, but the one who recognized him as his own by giving him a name (LEDUC, 1993).
• Whith the emergence of the polis, the households social structure disappears and paternity is stripped of this power. As opposed to the heroic legends, the civic discourse of the polis tends to present maternity as a condition of possibility of paternity (Loraux, 1995). This ends up highlighting the fragility of paternity, which does not exist without the recognition of the mother's word. Motherhood, on the contrary, does not need to be legitimized by the father's word (IRIARTE, 1996).
• This relevance given to the reproductive function constitutes a double-edged sword. If the intervention of the woman-mother is explicitly recognized as indispensable for the political enterprise, this implies a greater control of the legitimate wife, in the name of paternity (IRIARTE, 1996).
• According lo Loraux, the fragility of paternity has led to the obliteration of the political trascendence of motherhood under the dream of a purely paternal lineage (Loraux, Vernant)