A philosophy of home

When you think of ancient philosophy, you imagine Plato, Aristotle, the great discussions about politics, justice, and the city. But there is a surprising fact: for centuries, "domestic philosophy" was considered just as important as political philosophy. The term economics comes from the Greek oikonomika, which meant precisely "science of the house," and only much later did it become synonymous with money and markets. The reversal is here: the idea that the family is a private affair, of little interest to great thinkers, is a recent invention. In reality, ancient philosophy dealt with the home in depth — and, if certain texts had not been lost or discredited, today we would have a completely different view of the role of the home and those who live in it. The common belief is that ancient philosophers viewed the home as a secondary matter, reserved for women and irrelevant to society. But this is a simplification, built on a partial — and very masculine — interpretation. Aristotle, for example, divided the world into two spheres: the public one, of the city and men, where politics were decided, and the private one, of the home, where women were. He was not the only one who thought this way: General Pericles, in one of his orations, told the women of Athens that their glory was "to have as few voices as possible among men, both for virtue and for blame." A phrase that today sounds like a gag order. Yet not everyone accepted this view. Christine de Pizan, a 15th-century French philosopher, openly criticized Aristotle for underestimating the contribution of women. In 17th-century Venice, Lucrezia Marinella overturned his theory of the spheres and argued that a well-governed city depended on well-governed homes — and therefore on women. In Mexico, the philosopher Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote that "Aristotle's philosophy would have been better if he had learned to cook." But history is also played out in what has come down to us. A text called "Economics", attributed for centuries to Aristotle but of uncertain authorship, placed the home at the center of philosophical discourse: according to this work, the city is born from the sum of many homes, and a good collective life depends on how individual families function. Here, it is not women who are relegated: the home is the nucleus of the community, and its dynamics are a subject for serious thought. Other ancient philosophers also treated the home as a central theme. The texts of the Pythagorean women addressed topics such as relationship management, domestic virtue, and female power. Muso the Rufus, a Roman Stoic, argued that husband and wife should share everything, even daily chores and affection, "nothing private, not even their bodies." Hierocles, another Stoic, said that marriage — not politics — is the first human community, and that husband and wife must be able to switch roles. If the husband is away and the fruit ripens, the wife picks it; if the wife is sick, it is up to the husband to make bread or move furniture. In these visions, the barriers between man and woman are less rigid than they seem, and the home is the workshop where one learns to live together, not just a place of service. There is a question that emerges between the lines: if we had read and studied these texts, instead of leaving them on the sidelines, would we have a different culture regarding the value of housework, care, and the role of women? And even today, what do we lose when we leave the reflection on the home out of philosophy? A surprising detail: female philosophers have always written about the home, but they have been systematically excluded from textbooks, teachings, and bibliographies. Only now, says the author, is the situation changing. But the history of thought on the "private" is a history of erasures and choices about what to pass on. What if the real philosophical question was: which communities really matter? And who decides what is worthy of reflection? The phrase that sticks with you is this: "Thought about the home has been silenced, not because it is irrelevant, but because it is too powerful — and too close to those who had less of a voice." If this perspective on the philosophical value of the home has shaken you, on Lara Notes you can press I'm In: it's not a like, it's a way of saying that this idea now belongs to you. And if at the next dinner you use Sor Juana's story or Marinella's quote to change a conversation, on Lara Notes you can mark who was there with Shared Offline — because certain exchanges deserve to be remembered. This Note comes from an essay published in Aeon and saves you 12 minutes of reading.