The shrew wife of Socrates
Xanthippe, the young Athenian wife of Socrates has been described as the harshest, painful, ill-tempered, shouting, insulting woman that was unusual even for those ancient times when wives, girls and women were, by and large, soft spoken, gentle, submissive, docile, compromising and accommodating to their men.
Socrates is said to have chosen her because of her difficult behaviour and questioning spirit and argumentative disposition.
"None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, that if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.
The most famous and widely reported incident says:
Once Socrates was sitting with his students in a discourse when Xanthippe began shouting at him, like always. Socrates remained calm and did not answer back. She was so enraged, she stormed into the room and poured a pot full of water onto his head.
Socrates, however, reacted only by smiling calmly and saying:
"Did I not say that thundering Xanthippe also makes water?"
We know Socrates was a great thinker and philosopher but we often ignore the fact how his calm, studious, philosophic behaviour may have frustrated Xanthippe who must have wanted a 'normal man' to help her with her family life, arrange finances, climbing social status and parenting her three children.
She was also 30 years his junior. Such a large age disparity usually plays a vital role in shaping a couple's conjugal chemistry. Socrates may have found her too childish, frivolous, impatient, shallow, unthinking, materialistic, foolish, lacking depth; Whereas, she may have found him too impractical, too unrealistic, and difficult and impossible to understand; She may even have found him a crazy old man, stupid, foolish, mad and almost lunatic.
Philosophers are always notorious for being harshly judged by common normal people like that....
Socrates was famously ugly and poor and had no desire of improving his finances or his looks. He was a thinker lost in his thoughts, ideas and philosophy. A woman who has to bring up three kids in a moneyless home has to deal with harsh realities of life and will eventually become depressed, frustrated, dissatisfied, hopeless and will be unable to cope with her burdens, fatigue, fears and tensions of shouldering all material, emotional, physical and social responsibilities alone.
She will give way to shouting, fighting, hurting, scathing, insulting or shrewing in an attempt to jolt him to rise to action.
Shrewing is not acceptable and undesirable, but shrewing is the only way she tries to indirectly communicate that she is angry, dissatisfied, desperate, frustrated and needs help.
We can praise and admire Socrates for reacting calmly to her outrageous behaviour; It is precisely this calm and lack of reaction from him that forces Xanthippe to erupt in outrage.
In the end, we can only say that Socrates learnt much from his wife and attributed this also openly. His wife, however, learnt nothing from him.
Wise do learn more from fools than fools do from wise. And History and human society is full of such instances.
And let's also not forget: living with thinkers and philosophers is no cakewalk either....!
But that's just my opinion. Thanks for reading.