Reading Plutarch’s Women: Moral Judgement in the Moralia and Some Lives

Abstract

Plutarch has two distinct bodies of work: the Moralia and the Lives. Increasingly, however, questions about the unity of Plutarch’s work as a whole have been raised, and it has become of some concern to scholars of ancient biography to establish the level of philosophical content in the Lives. A comparative study of the women of the Lives and those in the Moralia may provide some insight into Plutarch’s greater philosophical project and narrative aims. Plutarch’s writings on and for women in the Conjugalia praecepta, Mulierum virtutes, Amatorius, De Iside et Osiride, and Consolatio ad uxorem lays a firm groundwork for the role of Woman in society and the marital unit. The language in these works is consistent with the language used to describe women in the Lives, where historical women appear as exempla for the moral improvement of his female students. This case study of five prominent women in the Lives reveals an uncomfortable probability: Plutarch presents women in the Lives in accordance with the principles set out in the Moralia and uses certain concepts to guide his readers towards a judgement of the exempla that agrees with his views on the ideal Woman.