The modern bride will undoubtedly turn up her nose and shake her independent head in disapproval of Plutarch’s suggestions about subordinating herself to her husband, and nobody will attempt to deny that the status of women has changed materially since Plutarch’s time; but, apart from this, she will find in Plutarch’s short essay many suggestions regarding whole-souled co-operation and cheerful intellectual companionship with her husband, which mutatis mutandis hold as good to-day as they did when they were written, nearly two thousand years ago. Nor is the husband neglected; he can find much sound advice regarding his attitude towards his wife and the respect and consideration that is always due to her.

Plutarch was no mere theorist in these matters. He himself was happily married, and anyone who doubts this should read his letter to his wife (Moralia, 608 a).

The essay is included in the catalogue of Lamprias (see Vol. I. Introd. p. xviii) and is not infrequently quoted or referred to by later writers, Stobaeus, for example, in his Florilegium, especially lxxiv., and Hieronymus (St. Jerome), Adversus Iovinianum, i. ad fin. It is well worth while, in this connexion, to read Jeremy Taylor’s sermon, The Marriage Ring, to see how a famous preacher served up many of the ideas of a heathen philosopher to a Christian congregation.

[0] From Plutarch to Pollianus and Eurydice, health and prosperity.

Following close upon the time-honoured rites which the priestess of Demeter ¹ applied to you when you were retiring together to the bridal chamber, a discourse which equally touches both of you and swells the nuptial song will, I think, have a useful effect which will also accord with convention.

In music they used to call one of the conventional themes for the flute the Horse Rampant, ² a strain which, as it seems, aroused an ardent desire in horses and imparted it to them at the time of mating. Of the many admirable themes contained in philosophy, that which deals with marriage deserves no less serious attention than any other, for by means of it philosophy weaves a spell over those who are entering together into a lifelong partnership, and renders them gentle and amiable toward each other. I have therefore drawn up a compendium of what you, who have been brought up in the atmosphere of philosophy, have often heard, putting it in the form of brief comparisons that it may be more easily remembered, and I am sending it as a gift for you both to possess in common; and at the same time I pray that the Muses may lend their presence and co-operation to Aphrodite, and may feel that it is no more fitting for them to provide a lyre or lute well attuned than it is to provide that the harmony which concerns marriage and the household shall be well attuned through reason, concord, and philosophy. Indeed, the ancients gave Hermes ³ a place at the side of Aphrodite, in the conviction that the pleasure in marriage stands especially in need of reason; and they also assigned a place there to Persuasion and the Graces, so that married people should succeed in attaining their mutual desires by persuasion and not by fighting and quarrelling.

Now that the nuptial ceremonies are over, and that the priestess of Ceres has joined you both together in the bands of matrimony according to the custom of the country, I thought a short discourse of this nature might not be either unacceptable or unseasonable, but rather serve as a kind epithalamium to congratulate your happy conjunction; more especially, since there can be nothing more useful in conjugal society than the observance of wise and wholesome precepts, suitable to the harmony of matrimonial converse. For among the variety of musical moods and measures there is one which is called Hippothoros, a sort of composition to the flute and hautboy, made use of to encourage and provoke stallions to cover mares. But philosophy being furnished with many noble and profitable discourses, there is not any one subject that deserves a more serious study than that of wedlock, whereby they who are engaged in a long community of bed and board are more steadfastly united in affection, and made more pliable one to another in humor and condition. To this purpose, having reduced under several short heads and similes some certain instructions and admonitions which you, as tutored up in philosophy, have frequently already heard, I send you the collection as a present, beseeching the Muses so with their presence to assist the Goddess Venus, that the harmony of your mutual society and complacency in domestic diligences may outcry the melodious concords of lute or harp, while you live united together by reason and philosophy. Therefore it was that the ancients placed the statue of Venus by that of Mercury, to signify that the pleasures of matrimony chiefly consist in the sweetness of conversation. They also set the Graces and Suadela, the Goddess of Eloquence, together, to show that the married couple were to act only by persuasion, and not to use the violences of wrangling and contention.