He continues his argument by advising his friends to _teach_ their wives; and he deals with the weakest point in woman’s life—the ignorance in which they were kept. ‘Do not be afraid,’ he says; ‘teach her all that you would wish your companion to know.’ Thereupon Anthisthenes puts the pertinent question: ‘If that is your idea, Socrates, why do you not try and train Xanthippë, who is, I believe, the most difficult of all wives, present, past, and future?’ To this he gets the following reply: ‘I have noticed,’ says Socrates, ‘that people who wish to become good horsemen get a spirited horse, not a tame, docile animal. They think that if they can manage a fiery steed they will find no difficulty with an ordinary horse. My case is the same. I wanted to be a citizen of the world and to mix with all men. So I took her. I am quite sure that if I can endure her, I shall find no difficulty in ordinary company.’ Thus Socrates draws benefit even from a shrewish wife. His ideas of a happy marriage, and the best means of securing that happiness, are set out for us by Xenophon in the _Œconomicus_. Ischomachus, Socrates’ interlocutor, is for all practical purposes Xenophon himself, and the whole passage should be compared with those delightful stories of conjugal happiness—the tale of Panthea, and the wife of Tigranes—which the historian gives us in the Education of Cyrus. The dialogue begins by Socrates asking Ischomachus how he won his sobriquet of ‘honest gentleman’—surely not by staying at home! ‘No,’ replies Ischomachus, ‘I do not spend my days indoors: my wife is quite capable of managing our household without my help.’ ‘Ah, that is what I want to know. Did you train your wife yourself to be all that a wife should be? Or, when you took her from her parents, did she possess enough knowledge to perform her share of house management?’ ‘Possess knowledge when I took her? Why, she was not fifteen years old, and until then she had lived under careful surveillance—to see and hear, and ask as little as possible. All that she knew was how to take wool and turn it into a dress. All that she had seen was how the spinning-women have their daily tasks assigned. As regards control of appetite, she had certainly received a sound education, and that, I think, is all-important.’