Page:Aristotle - The Politics, 1905.djvu/38

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30
The Parts of the Household

I. 2is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just[1], is the principle of order in political society.

3Seeing then that the state is made up of households, before speaking of the state we must speak of the management 1253 b of the household[2]. The parts of the household are the persons who compose it, and a complete household consists of slaves and freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in its least elements; and the first and least parts of a family are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. We have therefore to consider what each 2of these three relations is and ought to be: I mean the relation of master and servant, of husband and wife, and thirdly of parent and child. [I say γαμική) and τεκνοποιητική, there being no words for the two latter notions which adequately 3 represent them.] And there is another element of a household, the so-called art of money-making, which, according to some, is identical with household management, according to others, a principal part of it; the nature of this art will also have to be considered by us.

Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of practical life and also seeking to attain some better 4theory of their relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was saying at the out set[3], are all the same. Others affirm that the rule of a master

  1. Cp. N. Eth. v. 6. § 4.
  2. Reading with the MSS. οίκονομίας.
  3. Plato in Pol. 258 E foll., referred to already in c. I. § 2.