ABSTRACT
For Aristotle, “wife” designates a role, a form of difference that is both fraught and necessary for a flourishing polis: her “female” character militates against rule, her human capacities lean toward it; the tense dynamic that forms her character threatens the stability of the husband-wife distinction. The wife thus embodies a set of capacities and qualities that are both useful and potentially dangerous; a good political order would harness the good while guarding against the bad. In tracing the role that the figure of the wife plays in Aristotle’s political theory, I argue, we encounter a currency of exchange whereby the giving of affection, care, love, and honor serve as primary mechanisms of stabilizing the marital relationship. Just as the mother’s willingness to forgo recognition of her status as mother if in the child’s best interest is treated as a sign of the intensity of maternal love (EN 1159a28–33), so too the role of the wife is constructed in such a way as to make self-sacrifice her primary virtue, and to demand that she subordinate her intellectual capacities to her affection. In short, the political order as Aristotle conceives it requires not merely the sacrifice of women, but their self-sacrifice.
