In his essay “A Father’s Presence in the Home” that appeared in the July 15 edition of Principles , Dr. John A. Cuddeback explains the art of household economy in Aristotle’s treatise “On Household Management.” He identifies Aristotle’s two first principles that govern the order of a home: the bond between a husband and wife and the relationship between the parents and the children. What distinguishes the family from other social bodies, Aristotle observes, is the daily activity shared among its members who eat, sleep, work, and rest in the same home. This living together in the course of the many years of a lifetime shapes and informs the lives of the young and provides a paradigm of human happiness—living together under one roof with the people one loves and cherishes in the spirit of mutually giving and receiving. Thus, the constant or frequent presence of the mother and father determine the quality and degree of the happiness enjoyed in the home for both parents and children. Homes flourish in proportion to the presence of mothers and fathers ordering their household activities and providing for the needs of the children. As husband and wife and parents and children work, play, socialize, help, and associate with each other on a daily basis, they learn the art of economy or household management: the division of labor, cooperation for the common good, the value of humble work, the enjoyment of companionship, and the pleasure of productivity and a sense of accomplishment in creating a welcoming home.
While modern economic life does not provide the ideal conditions for the constant presence of fathers and mothers earning their livelihood near to their homes as in the example of farmers working on the land they own close to their home, the principles of the art of household economy do not change. Mothers and fathers have to be as present and as available as possible for each other and for the sake of their children. They need to enjoy meals and conversation at dinner tables; they need to enjoy favorite activities and recreational pursuits as a family; parents and older children need to work together in the kitchen, in the yard, in the garden, and in cleaning projects; they need to pray and worship together as a family; they need to spend evenings together in a living room reading, playing games, listening to music, or telling stories. They need to have a common life, a family time, not a series of individualistic lives with specialized pursuits or peculiar hobbies that makes each person in the home an isolated unit rather than a member of a family. A shared family life with each person’s full presence, availability, and participation does not depend on technology—the enemy of a family’s social life. With televisions or computers in separate rooms for private use, no one is truly present or attentive to others.
The art of household economy also gives first priority to family life and secondary importance to work or career. A single-income family with a living wage contributes more to the happiness of the home than two incomes for the sake of luxuries. Excessive involvement in committees or membership in many organizations that require weekly attendance or commitments of time also detract from the common social life of the family that relies on daily presence and ready availability as much as possible. The home must always serve as the center of a person’s life, a space and time that needs protection from endless distractions and unnecessary outside activities that fragment the unity of a home and compromise family solidarity. With only a minimal or limited presence in the home, the parents as the first and primary educators of their children lose their major role in the formation of their children. Children need to see constant examples, not just occasional glimpses, of their parents’ virtues and ideals in action in daily life to admire and imitate them as exemplars.
When this normal kind of association in a family is lacking, children do not discover the personhood of their parents or enjoy their company. Parents assume the role of mere providers or workers who pay for expenses and care only for the bodily needs of the young. When parents do not share their hobbies, interests, skills, or favorite recreations with their children, the young receive no introduction to the many pleasures that create the blessings of leisure. Teaching opportunities abound in daily life for children to learn all that parents know. Parents who are constantly present also have natural opportunities to share their life story, the memories of their childhood, and their family history with the next generation. Heart speaks to heart in this daily experience of a shared common life. Children need to know the sensibilities of their parents, their sorrows, joys, defeats, and triumphs to recognize their full humanity and understand them more intimately.
While the goal of a household economy is to provide a basic livelihood and adequate provisions for the family so that food, shelter, clothing, and basic necessities suffice for a human life, the end of home management is never work for the sake of work but work for the sake of play, leisure, or happiness. The mere acquisition of money and possessions for their own sake confuses ends and means. The end of household management is happiness, a life well lived, not mere survival or the accumulation of riches. Aristotle argues that man errs when he thinks “mere accumulation is the object of household management” and suffers “anxiety about livelihood, rather than about well-being” as if “money were the one aim and everything else must contribute to that aim.” While household management and husbandry strive for productivity and abundance, they do not measure wealth by the standard of money. As Aristotle explains, “the business of household management is concerned more with human beings than it is with inanimate property.”
This ancient wisdom offers timeless advice for modern households that often lose sight of the first principles of the economy of the family and the order of the home. Fatherless families and single-parent households do not create the environment and culture of the home Aristotle prescribes because of the conspicuous absence of a parent. Husbands who expect their wives to supplement the family income with full-time employment for unnecessary purchases do not value the daily, constant presence and availability of the mother in the formative stages of young children’s lives. Women who idolize career over marriage and motherhood or who use the criterion of “quality time” to justify their frequent absence from the home also sacrifice some of the happiness of family life that depends on each person’s easy accessibility. The attachment to technology as a source of information and entertainment rather than the enjoyment of people and pleasure of conversation also complicates the basic purposes of family life.
The art of household management, then, is not for the sake of the acquisition of infinite wealth but of a finite amount of wealth or property sufficient for the needs of family members. Moderation is the ideal, not avarice. This distinction between household management and the acquiring of property is based on the understanding that Nature provides for those who obey her laws and cooperate with her purposes “since Nature,” Aristotle writes, “always aims at bringing about the best.” Household management is a moral art rather than mere calculation about earning, spending, and saving money because it forms the virtues of the members of the home—because it socializes them and prepares them to enter the public life of a society. The order of the family perfects and civilizes man in virtue and goodness so that he learns to live well and not as a barbarian, for, as Aristotle explains, “if he is without virtue, he is a most unholy and savage being, and worse than all others in the indulgence of lust and gluttony.”
Mitchell Kalpakgian, Ph.D. has completed fifty years of teaching beginning as a teaching assistant at the University of Kansas, continuing as a professor of English at Simpson College in Iowa for thirty-one years, and recently teaching part-time at various schools and college in New Hampshire. As well as contributing to a number of publications, he has published seven books: The Marvelous in Fielding’s Novels, The Mysteries of Life in Children’s Literature, The Lost Arts of Modern Civilization, An Armenian Family Reunion (a collection of short stories), Modern Manners: The Poetry of Conduct and The Virtue of Civility, and The Virtues We Need Again. He has designed homeschooling literature courses for Seton Home School, and he also teaches online courses for Queen of Heaven Academy and part-time for Northeast Catholic College.
