our house here, which belongs like to both. It is common property, for
all that I possess goes by my will into the common fund, and in the same
way all that you deposited [15] was placed by you to the common fund.
[16] We need not stop to calculate in figures which of us contributed
most, but rather let us lay to heart this fact that whichever of us
proves the better partner, he or she at once contributes what is most
worth having."

[11] (The timid, fawn-like creature.) See Lecky, "Hist. of Eur.
Morals," ii. 305. For the metaphor cf. Dem. "Olynth." iii. 37. 9.

[12] Lit. "woman." Cf. N. T. {gunai}, St. John ii. 4; xix. 26.

[13] Or, "our interests will centre in them; it will be a blessing we
share in common to train them that they shall fight our battles,
and..."

[14] Cf. "Mem." II. ii. 13. Holden cf. Soph. "Ajax." 567; Eur.
"Suppl." 918.

[15] Or reading {epenegke} with Cobet, "brought with you in the way of
dowry."

[16] Or, "to the joint estate."

Thus I addressed her, Socrates, and thus my wife made answer: "But how
can I assist you? what is my ability? Nay, everything depends on you. My
business, my mother told me, was to be sober-minded!" [17]

[17] "Modest and temperate," and (below) "temperance."

"Most true, my wife," I replied, "and that is what my father said to me.
But what is the proof of sober-mindedness in man or woman? Is it not so
to behave that what they have of good may ever be at its best, and that
new treasures from the same source of beauty and righteousness may be
most amply added?"

"But what is there that I can do," my wife inquired, "which will help to
increase our joint estate?"

"Assuredly," I answered, "you may strive to do as well as possible what
Heaven has given you a natural gift for and which the law approves."

"And what may these things be?" she asked.

"To my mind they are not the things of least importance," I replied,
"unless the things which the queen bee in her hive presides over are of
slight importance to the bee community; for the gods" (so Ischomachus
assured me, he continued), "the gods, my wife, would seem to have
exercised much care and judgment in compacting that twin system which
goes by the name of male and female, so as to secure the greatest
possible advantage [18] to the pair. Since no doubt the underlying
principle of the bond is first and foremost to perpetuate through
procreation the races of living creatures; [19] a