And Friendship of this kind has also the pleasurable and the profitable
more than that between persons unconnected by blood, in proportion as
their life is also more shared in common. Then again in the Fraternal
Friendship there is all that there is in that of Companions, and more
in the good, and generally in those who are alike; in proportion as
they are more closely tied and from their very birth have a feeling of
affection for one another to begin with, and as they are more like in
disposition who spring from the same stock and have grown up together
and been educated alike: and besides this they have the greatest
opportunities in respect of time for proving one another, and can
therefore depend most securely upon the trial.
Between Husband and Wife there is thought to be Friendship by a law of
nature: man being by nature disposed to pair, more than to associate in
Communities: in proportion as the family is prior in order of time and
more absolutely necessary than the Community. And procreation is more
common to him with other animals; all the other animals have Communion
thus far, but human creatures cohabit not merely for the sake of
procreation but also with a view to life in general::[8] because in
this connection the works are immediately divided, and some belong to
the man, others to the woman: thus they help one the other, putting
what is peculiar to each into the common stock.
And for these reasons this Friendship is thought to combine the
profitable and the pleasurable: it will be also based upon virtue if
they are good people; because each has goodness and they may take
delight in this quality in each other. Children too are thought to be a
tie: accordingly the childless sooner separate, for the children are a
good common to both and anything in common is a bond of union.
The question how a man is to live with his wife, or (more generally)
one friend with another, appears to be no other than this, how it is
just that they should: because plainly there is not the same principle
of Justice between a friend and friend, as between strangers, or
companions, or mere chance fellow-travellers.
Chapter XIII.
There are then, as was stated at the commencement of this book, three
kinds of Friendship, and in each there may be friends on a footing of
equality and friends in the relation of superior and inferior; we find,
I mean, that people who are alike in goodness, become friends, and
better with worse, and so also pleasant people; again, because of
advantage people are friends, either balancing exactly their mutual
profitableness or differing from one another herein. Well then, those
who are equal should in right of this equality be equalised also by the
degree of their Friendship and the other points, and those who are on a
footing of inequality by rendering Friendship in proportion to the
superiority of the other party.