A Stoic philosopher, C. Musonius Rufus, who flourished in the time of Nero, spoke or wrote treatises on the education of women and on marriage, and large fragments of his sayings or writings have come down to us. He argues that the same training and education must be suitable for both sexes. He affirms that this ought to be the case for training in all the mental qualities, but that possibly certain tasks may in some cases be more appropriate for man or for woman. The sum of his exposition is perhaps contained in the following words:[105] “I say that, as in the human race men have a stronger and women a weaker nature, each of these natures should have the tasks assigned to it which are most suited to it, and the heavier should be allotted to the stronger, and the lighter to the weaker. Spinning, as well as house-keeping, would, therefore, be more suitable for women than for men; while gymnastics, as well as out-of door work, would be fitter for men than for women; though sometimes some men might properly undertake some of the lighter tasks and such as seem to belong to women; and women, again, might engage in the harder tasks, and those which appear more appropriate for men, in cases where either bodily qualities or necessity or particular occasions might lead to such action. For perhaps all human tasks are open to all, and common both to men and women, and nothing is necessarily appointed exclusively for either; not that some things may not be more suitable for one, and others for the other nature, so that some are called men’s and others women’s occupations. But whatever things have reference to virtue, these one may rightly affirm to be equally appropriate to both natures, since we say that virtues do not belong more to the one than to the other.” Musonius applies his principle of equality to sexual relations and to marriage. He held that what was wrong in a woman was equally wrong in a man, or rather was more disgraceful to a man, inasmuch as he claimed to be a stronger being, and therefore more capable of controlling his passions. He therefore denounced all illicit amours as unjust and lawless. He also propounded a view which was afterwards adopted by the Christian writers, that all indulgence of the flesh not requisite for the propagation of the race was unworthy of a philosopher. But he differed from the great mass of the Christian writers, and regarded marriage as the happiest condition of life. He describes it as a community of life, and a mutual care for each other in health and sickness, and in every occurrence of life, and he brands a marriage when there is no community of feeling as worse than a desert. He argued that the man who does not marry must be inferior in his experience and usefulness to the man who does, and that therefore the solitary life is not advantageous even for the philosophers. And he urges that the whole of civilization rests upon the institution of marriage. “For,” says he,