The Dinner Table Putting persons first. Advice from Aristotle

“Household management attends more to humans than to the acquisition of inanimate things and to human excellence more than to the excellence of property which we call wealth.” Aristotle Politics I.13

Putting persons first means putting their true flourishing, their true happiness first. The household is fundamentally a place for human persons to become truly happy, by growing in virtue in the context of loving, healthy relationships. There are two kinds of relationships that are fundamental in the household: spousal, and parental. Aristotle says that the proper flourishing of those relationships is the parents’ first object of intention. In other words, those who have authority in the household–the husband and wife–are first of all concerned about a) their relationship with one another, and b) their relationship with their children. And in that order, for there is a primacy of the first relationship over the second. The spousal relationship is primary both because it is a real origin of the children, and also because it remains the formative root of parent-child relationships, as well as child-child relationships. In general, as goes the relationship between spouses, so go all other relationships in the household.

Aristotle’s understanding of virtuous friendship is very helpful for the right consideration of the relationship of spouses. A few points about such friendship will be highlighted.

1. “Friendship seems to consist rather in loving than in being loved.” Ethics VIII.8

Aristotle remarks that while many people prefer receiving love to giving it, true friendship consists more essentially in the giving of love. He calls as witness those most amazing of lovers: mothers. While mothers certainly rejoice in the love their children give to them, they put priority on the love that they give to their children. Aristotle uses a remarkable example: mothers will even give up their children to be raised by another ,if it is what is truly best for the children. Here is a clear instance of putting love for the children above the desire to be loved in return. Besides, Aristotle proceeds to ask, for what do we most praise a true friend: that he is loved much, or that he loves much? Surely the latter. So while both loving and being loved are necessary in a friendship, there is a primacy of giving love.

Now it is one thing to see this point on a theoretical level, and it is another thing to practice it. It seems that in practice spouses are prone to reverse this hierarchy, acting as though the more fundamental approach to the spouse is that he or she is the one I can always count on to love me unselfishly. When something is not going right in the relationship we tend to think, “Where’s the love?” And for some reason we are not asking ourselves that question. Aristotle’s insight into friendship implies that a hallmark of spousal love will be the willingness—indeed the choice—to put giving love before the need or desire to receive love.

2. “Perfect friendship is the friendship of people who are good, and alike in virtue.” Ethics VIII.3

True friendship requires good moral character; it requires virtue. It is not that true friendship requires we be already perfected in virtue; but it does require a baseline of moral maturity, and a real commitment to growth in virtue. Friends can then simultaneously grow in their friendship and in virtue. Our capacity for true friendship is directly proportional to the degree of moral virtue in our character.

And so it is in the spousal relationship. The normal tasks of marriage presuppose a certain level of moral character, as well as a mutual commitment to growth in virtue. Making and overseeing a household presupposes, and gives occasion for growth in the four cardinal virtues of justice, courage, temperance and prudence. Building a life together, which normally includes the task of rearing children, may be considered an ‘ordinary’ life, but its success implies an extra-ordinary moral character.

3. “For there is nothing so characteristic of friends as living together.” Ethics VIII.5

“…and this will be realized in their living together and sharing in discussion and thought; for this is what living together would seem to mean in the case of man, and not, as in the case of cattle, feeding in the same place.”Ethics IX.9

Friends, and especially spouses, seek to live one life together, sharing in the many aspects of life. But some activities are more important than others. Certain activities are at the heart of human life, and thus are at the heart of a shared life. As noted above, human life is above all rational. For this reason Aristotle says that ‘living together’ especially consists in “sharing in discussion and thought.” For the young and inexperienced in life, it might seem that sharing in discussion and thought could never be as exciting as any number of other things. Such is youth and inexperience. The sharing of minds, and their deep aspirations, reflections, and insights, makes for a lived-unity, of which other shared activities are but a dim reflection.

At the heart of the spousal relationship are profound habits, formed through years of disciplined—and we can add unselfish—effort, of listening and speaking, of being-together in mind, even if in silence.

  

Dining:

Dining together provides a context wherein even the most economically challenged household can have a kind of free space for being-together in joy and peace. Experience shows that no great material wealth is required in order for dining to be a profoundly human, and even festive occasion. It is perhaps most of all in a rich dining experience—one rich especially in love and communion—that the true ‘wealth’ of a household is most apparent. Indeed it seems that a person, be it youth or adult, that has a place at a table, a place where he knows that he really belongs—and would be sorely missed—is a person that has a very stable anchor in life.

While daily recreation is perhaps most of all an activity of the dining room, there are other ways that a household community can recreate together, such as in walks, singing, reading, or games. It is a somewhat alarming trend that there seems to be less and less time in households for such communal recreation, even while it is also the case that less time is spent in shared work in the home. The net effect is that there is a lack of real living-together in the place where humans naturally should find mutual presence and shared life. It is perhaps no wonder that a great scourge of our age is isolation and loneliness.