Household management

11 passages · search this phrase →

Often appears with: household management and servants · justice as a virtue · custom and the manners of a people · money, coin, and credit · marriage and betrothal · labor, wages, and the division of work · forms of government · zosimus freedman · usury (tokos) · tyranny from fortune-based superiority · trade travel to flanders · threats of social and legal retaliation

Usually: detachment (6) · argument (4) · narrative (4) · injustice endured (3) · the test or trial (3) · exhortation (3) · indignation (3) · letter or document (2) · censure (2) · reflection (1)

Quotable

“And this is the explanation of the name (TOKOS), which means the breeding of money. For as offspring resemble their parents, so usury is money bred of money. Whence of all forms of money-making it is most against nature.” Aristotle, Politics: A Treatise on Government · insight

“It is the greatest Glory of a Matron, to be obedient to her Husband.” Desiderius Erasmus, The Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. · observation

“Those Things that are joined together with Glue, are easily pull'd one from another if they be handled roughly as soon as done, but when once they have been fast united together, and the Glue is dry, there is nothing more firm.” Desiderius Erasmus, The Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. · observation

The Odyssey primary

Homer · 8th–12th century BCE (composed earlier than c. 750 BCE; traditional authorship generally placed in the 8th century BCE)
BOOK I. > BOOK I (7/8)

Penelope hears Phemius sing of Troy’s aftermath and mourns; Telemachus lets the bard continue, orders the suitors to stop brawling, and threatens formal action and divine reckoning.

ever about his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors were sitting. Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great stai…

The Odyssey primary

Homer · 8th–12th century BCE (composed earlier than c. 750 BCE; traditional authorship generally placed in the 8th century BCE)
BOOK I. > BOOK XVII (10/10)

Penelope decides she will reward the stranger if he speaks truth, and Ulysses tells Penelope to wait until sundown for his account, promising only truth about her husband, while Telemachus arranges household safety and evening amusements continue.

No estate can stand such recklessness, for we have now no Ulysses to protect us. If he were to come again, he and his son would soon have their revenge.” As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to Eumaeus, “Go and call the stranger; did you not hear how my son sneezed just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the suito…

The Odyssey of Homer primary

Homer · Composed in antiquity (date uncertain; likely 8th century BCE)
BOOK I. > BOOK XXIII. (8/8)

After love and sleep, Odysseus instructs Penelope to care for his wealth and keep silent while he goes to the farm to see Laertes, telling her the town will hear news of the wooers’ deaths.

wooers, whom I slew in the halls. Wherefore ascend with the women thy handmaids into the upper chamber, and sit there and look on no man, nor ask any question.” Therewith he girded on his shoulder his goodly armour, and roused Telemachus and the neatherd and the swineherd, and bade them all take weapons of war in their hands. So they were not disobedient to his word, but clad themselves in mail, and opened the doors…

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman primary

Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792 (composed); finished and published in 1792
CHAPTER 1. THE RIGHTS AND INVOLVED DUTIES OF MANKIND CONSIDERED. > CHAPTER 4. (12/21)

She contrasts “fine ladies” taught to be fashionable and sentimental with “notable women” of practical sense, arguing that lack of intellectual cultivation leaves them idle and often makes them tyrannize households.

by the generous juices of spring, just raised by the electric fermentation of the season; nor to dry up the feelings by employing the mind in investigations remote from life. With respect to women, when they receive a careful education, they are either made fine ladies, brimful of sensibility, and teeming with capricious fancies; or mere notable women. The latter are often friendly, honest creatures, and have a shr…

The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems primary

Geoffrey Chaucer · c. 1387–1400 (composition of The Canterbury Tales and included poems; some items likely earlier/later)
i.e. > Book of Marriage”) quoted by Hieronymus, “Contra (55/117)

After the husband closes his counting-house, he and his wife negotiate the day’s household routine, while the husband privately asks for secrecy about a loan for beasts before leaving to Flanders.

Thou hast enough, in every manner wise, That to a thrifty household may suffice. Thee lacketh none array, nor no vitail; Of silver in thy purse thou shalt not fail.” And with that word his contour door he shet,* *shut And down he went; no longer would he let;* *delay, hinder And hastily a mass was there said, And speedily the tables were laid, And to the dinner faste they them spe…

Politics: A Treatise on Government primary

Aristotle · c. 335–322 BCE
BOOK I > CHAPTER X

Aristotle decides that money-getting relates to household and state leadership only in certain ways, whereas usury is condemned because it breeds money from money instead of using it for exchange.

We have now determined what was before doubtful, whether or no the art of getting money is his business who is at the head of a family or a state, and though not strictly so, it is however very necessary; for as a politician does not make men, but receiving them from the hand of nature employs them to proper purposes; thus the earth, or the sea, or something else ought to supply them with provisions, and this it is t…

The Decameron, Volume I primary

Giovanni Boccaccio · c. 1349–1353 (composition of The Decameron)
(23/218)

At the villa on a hill, Pampinea proposes daily rotation of authority, is crowned queen, assigns household roles to servants and attendants, and commands everyone back for breakfast at tierce.

signory for that day; and let each holder of the signory be, for the time, sole arbiter of the place and manner in which we are to pass our time." Pampinea's speech was received with the utmost applause, and with one accord she was chosen queen for the first day. Whereupon Filomena hied her lightly to a bay-tree, having often heard of the great honour in which its leaves, and such as were deservedly crowned therewit…

The Letters of the Younger Pliny, First Series — Volume 1 primary

Pliny the Younger (Publius Caecilius Secundus) · c. 96–113 CE (composition of the letters collected as First Series, Volume 1)
Book of his correspondence, and which show us Pliny acting as Governor of the province of Pontus and Bithynia. He had been sent there because the finances of many of the cities had been allowed to fall into a shocking state, and because the Emperor wanted a man whom he could thoroughly trust to put them straight. No doubt Pliny, while flattered at this proof of Trajan's regard, felt the severance from his friends and ordinary pursuits which this term of absence necessitated. But compare his attitude with that of Cicero as Governor of Cilicia! Cicero crawled on the outward journey, and when he reached his destination he counted the days to his return like a bullied school-boy counts the days to the end of the term. He writes to his friends in the capital, begging and praying of them that they will prevent his being obliged to stay for a second year. All his thoughts are of Rome and how to return there. The wretched provincials bore him to distraction; he yearns for the wider arena of the capital in which to play the swelling part to which he aspires. There is, in short, not a trace in Cicero's letters from his province to show that he took the slightest interest in his new surroundings. Pliny displays a far different spirit. He reminds us more of the Colonial Governor of our own day. He is interested in the past history and traditions of the country, he is anxious that the cities shall have good water supplies, good baths, good theatres, good gymnasia. He is for ever suggesting to the Emperor that he should send architects to consult with him on some important public work. And these letters disclose to us what a wonderful system of organised government the Roman Empire possessed. Pliny even writes to Trajan to ask permission that an evil-smelling sewer may be covered over in a town called Amastria. If all the governors of the provinces wrote home for orders on such points, the Emperor must indeed have been busy, and some of his replies to Pliny show that Trajan hinted very plainly that a governor ought to have some initiative of his own. None the less, the tenour of this correspondence proves that Trajan held the threads of government very jealously in his own hands. When Pliny suggested the establishment of a small fire-brigade in Nicomedia, where the citizens had stood enjoying the aesthetic beauty of a disastrous fire which destroyed whole streets, instead of putting it out, Trajan sharply vetoed the suggestion, on the ground that the Greeks were factious people and would turn even a fire-brigade to illicit and seditious purposes. > BOOK V. (21/22)

Pliny tells Paullinus how he manages his servants, praising his freedman Zosimus, explaining Zosimus’s illness history, and requesting lodging and care at Paullinus’s farm at Forum Julii.

5.XX.--TO URSUS. Within a short time of their impeaching Julius Bassus the Bithynians brought a second action, this time against Rufus Varenus, their proconsul, the very man whom, in their action against Bassus, they had received permission, at their own request, to retain as their advocate. On being brought into the Senate they applied for a commission to be appointed to investigate their charges, and Varenus sough…

The Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. primary

Desiderius Erasmus · 1522-1524
Book to all* Protestants *in general, and cause them to recommend it to be read by their Children, that there is no Book fitter for them to read, which does in so delightful and instructing a Manner utterly overthrow almost all the Popish Opinions and Superstitions, and erect in their Stead, a Superstructure of Opinions that are purely Protestant. > Part by Sea. (16/56)

A master Rabanus bullies and commands his servant Syrus to clean, light fires, run errands, and handle household tasks, complaining that the servant speaks too much and contradicts him.

*Ra.* What's that you say you slow-Back? *Sy.* Nothing at all, Sir. *Ra.* No, Sirrah, did I not hear you mutter? *Sy.* I was saying my Prayers. *Ra.* Ay, I believe so, but it was the Lord's-Prayer backwards then. Pray, what was that you were chattering about Imperiousness? *Sy.* I was wishing you might be an Emperor. *Ra.* And I wish you may be made a Man of a Stump of a Tree. Wait upon me to Church, and then r…

The Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. primary

Eulalia teaches that divorce is no longer a remedy and urges mutual adjustment, then explains her own strategy: observe a husband’s temper and preferences, manage the household carefully, and soothe him like training animals.

*Xa.* You speak very right. *Eu.* It frequently happens that that mutual Love that ought to be between the Husband and Wife is cooled before they come to be throughly acquainted one with another. This is the first Thing that ought to be provided against; for when a Spirit of Dissention is once sprung up, it is a difficult Matter to bring them to a Reconciliation, especially if it ever proceeded so far as to come to …

The Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. primary

Xantippe debates divorce, and the wife figure argues it would humiliate her, endanger her children’s position, and make her a widow worse off than expected; she then prescribes household order, respect, pleasant table conversation, and affectionate handling of a drunken return.

*Xa.* But I have thought on it a great many Times. *Eu.* But if ever that Thought comes into your Mind again, first of all consider with yourself, what an insignificant Figure a Woman makes when she is parted from her Husband. It is the greatest Glory of a Matron, to be obedient to her Husband. This Nature dictates, and it is the Will of God, that the Woman should wholly depend upon her Husband: Only think, as it re…