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repose is necessary, but able to perform those which demand exercise. And with respect to children, the bearing of them belongs to one sex, but the advantage of them is common to both; for the one has to rear them, and the other to educate them....
A good and perfect wife ought to be mistress of everything within the house, and to have the care of everything according to fixt laws; allowing no one to come in unbidden by her husband, and especially keeping on her guard against everything which can be noised abroad relating to a woman's dishonor. So that if any mischance has happened within doors, she alone ought to know about it; but when those who have come in have done anything wrong, the husband should bear the blame. And she should manage the expenses laid out upon such festivals as her husband has agreed with her in keeping, and make an outlay of clothes and other ornaments on a somewhat lesser scale than is encouraged by the laws of the state; considering that neither splendor of vestments, nor preeminence of beauty, nor the amount of gold, contributes so much to the commendation of a woman as good management in domestic affairs, and a noble and comely manner of life; since all such array of the soul is far more lovely, and has greater force (than anything besides), to provide herself and her children true ornament till old age.
A wife therefore ought to inspire herself with confidence, and perpetually to be at the head of domestic affairs. For it is unseemly for a man to know all that goes on in the house; in all respects indeed she ought to be obedient to her husband, and not to busy herself about public affairs, nor to take part in matrimonial concerns. And when it is time to give his daughters in marriage, or to get wives for his sons, by all means in these respects she should obey her husband. And she ought to show herself a fellow counsellor to her husband, so as to assent to what pleases him, remembering that it is less unseemly for a husband to take in hand domestic matters, than for a