[Sidenote: C] 17. When kings are fond of music, they make many musicians; when of learning, learned men; when of athletics, gymnasts. So when the love of a husband is for the person, his wife will be all for dress; when for pleasure, she becomes lewd and wanton; when for goodness and virtue, she shows herself discreet and chaste. 18. When a Lacedaemonian girl was once asked whether she had already embraced a man, she answered, ‘No, indeed; but _he_ has embraced _me_.’ Such, I believe, is the right attitude for a lady—not to shun or dislike caresses, when the husband begins them, nor yet to begin them of her own accord. The one course is bold and immodest, the other disdainful and [Sidenote: D] unaffectionate. 19. The woman ought not to possess private friends, but to share those of the man. But first and greatest are the gods, and it is therefore right for the wife to reverence or acknowledge only those gods who are recognized by the husband. Her street-door should be kept shut to out-of-the-way forms of worship and alien superstitions. No deity finds gratification in ceremonies which a woman performs in secret and by stealth. 20. Plato holds that a community is in a state of blissful well-being when the expressions ‘_mine_’ and ‘_not mine_’ are scarcely ever heard, inasmuch as the citizens enjoy, as far as [Sidenote: E] possible, the common use of everything worth considering. Much more ought such language to be abolished from the married state. In the same way, however, in which medical men tell us that a blow on the left side produces an answering sensation in the right, it is proper for a wife to sympathize with her husband’s concerns and the husband with the wife’s. In this way, just as ropes, when interwoven, lend each other strength, so, through each party reciprocating the other’s goodwill, the partnership will be maintained by both combined. Nature blends us through the body in such a way as to take [Sidenote: F] a portion from each, and by commingling produce an offspring common to both, so that neither can define or distinguish an ‘own’ part from ‘another’s’. The same sort of partnership between married persons should assuredly exist in respect of money also. They should pour it all into a single fund, and blend it in such a way that they never think of one part as ‘own’ and one as ‘another’s’, but treat it all as ‘own’ and none of it as ‘another’s’. And as we call a mixture ‘wine’, though it may contain a greater proportion of water, so the property of the house should be said to belong to the man, even though the wife may contribute the larger share. 21. Helen loved wealth, and Paris loved pleasure: Odysseus was wise, and Penelope discreet. Hence the union of the latter [Sidenote: 141] pair was happy and enviable, while that of the former brought upon Greeks and Asiatics an ‘Iliad of Woes’.