The
parts of household management correspond to the persons who compose
the household, and a complete household consists of slaves and
freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in its fewest
possible elements; and the first and fewest possible parts of a family
are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. We have
therefore to consider what each of these three relations is and
ought to be: I mean the relation of master and servant, the marriage
relation (the conjunction of man and wife has no name of its own), and
thirdly, the procreative relation (this also has no proper name).
And there is another element of a household, the so-called art of
getting wealth, which, according to some, is identical with
household management, according to others, a principal part of it; the
nature of this art will also have to be considered by us.
Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of
practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of
their relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that
the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a
household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal
rule, as I was saying at the outset, are all the same. Others affirm
that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature, and
that the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law only, and
not by nature; and being an interference with nature is therefore
unjust.
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