Women's Role in the Home and the State: Stoic Theory Reconsidered

THE Stoics have for some time now enjoyed a reputation for being gender egalitarians, feminists, or perhaps proto-feminists. Such interpretations date back at least to the early twentieth centuryl and in more recent times have been made by Ludwig Edelstein,2 Elizabeth Asmis,3 Martha Nussbaum,4 and Malcolm Schofield.5 Robert Sharples,6 W. Klassen,7 and Julie Ward8 have concurred. This paper challenges such interpretations and tries to show that the question of the Stoics' attitudes toward women is more complicated than has generally been appreciated. The evidence, on balance, suggests that the opinio