Oh! How times have changed! Plutarch, writing in his Morals about the role wives should play in marriage, says they should reflect their husbands' moods. If the old man is happy, then the wife shouldn’t be sad; if sad, then she shouldn’t be happy. His mirth should be her mirth; his sadness, hers. Where did Plutarch get such ideas? Doesn’t matter. He’s dead, so you can’t change him. Rather, let’s look at his way of looking at this “moral.”
Plutarch writes that a mirror adorned with gold or precious stones is rather useless unless it reflects a true likeness, but then he writes something that most of us would find contradictory. He says the role of a wife is to be a mirror for her husband. Was he just expressing wishful thinking? In the Forum, Mrs. Plutarch might have appeared by her husband’s side as a mirror of his opinion. But in privacy? My guess is that Mrs. Plutarch wasn’t a passive reflection at home. She probably expressed herself. “Pick up your toga, Plutarch, and don’t pass gas in public.” Maybe times haven’t changed in that regard.
In some ways we are all mirrors of some kind. Yawn. Yes. Yawn. Yawn in a gathering and others will yawn. Smile; others will smile. We do reflect mood. Watch two people talk over a cup of coffee. Watch them place their arms in similar positions. Watch laughter spread like the concentric waves emanating as from a pebble tossed into a pond. Yes. We do mirror one another. And we do so with opinions. Find yourself drawn to like-minded people?
Is it wrong to want the mirrors around you to send back a faithful reflection of your thought? Probably not: Evolution might have geared us toward seeking similarity. Mirrors that reflect our ideas confirm them to us. No one has to spend energy defending thought when all thought is a single bouncing photon in a hall of gilded mirrors.
Time to discard the ornamented mirrors. Time to go into the funhouse, see the distortions from the wavy mirrors, and question whether or not you really look like—or think like—that. Time to seek your image in smoky or broken mirrors or in those without a smooth silver backing. Possibly even time to see your reflection in plain glass that allows some of your thought to pass through while sending back a ghostly semblance of you.
Plutarch’s dead; it is time to bury his ‘moral’ that anyone should simply reflect the ideas of another. You neither have to see the world through reflections nor have to mirror the thoughts of others. Crack some mirrors. Get to the truth behind the reflective surfaces. There are already too many useless mirrors adorned with gold and precious stones in the public forum.
Plutarch writes that a mirror adorned with gold or precious stones is rather useless unless it reflects a true likeness, but then he writes something that most of us would find contradictory. He says the role of a wife is to be a mirror for her husband. Was he just expressing wishful thinking? In the Forum, Mrs. Plutarch might have appeared by her husband’s side as a mirror of his opinion. But in privacy? My guess is that Mrs. Plutarch wasn’t a passive reflection at home. She probably expressed herself. “Pick up your toga, Plutarch, and don’t pass gas in public.” Maybe times haven’t changed in that regard.
In some ways we are all mirrors of some kind. Yawn. Yes. Yawn. Yawn in a gathering and others will yawn. Smile; others will smile. We do reflect mood. Watch two people talk over a cup of coffee. Watch them place their arms in similar positions. Watch laughter spread like the concentric waves emanating as from a pebble tossed into a pond. Yes. We do mirror one another. And we do so with opinions. Find yourself drawn to like-minded people?
Is it wrong to want the mirrors around you to send back a faithful reflection of your thought? Probably not: Evolution might have geared us toward seeking similarity. Mirrors that reflect our ideas confirm them to us. No one has to spend energy defending thought when all thought is a single bouncing photon in a hall of gilded mirrors.
Time to discard the ornamented mirrors. Time to go into the funhouse, see the distortions from the wavy mirrors, and question whether or not you really look like—or think like—that. Time to seek your image in smoky or broken mirrors or in those without a smooth silver backing. Possibly even time to see your reflection in plain glass that allows some of your thought to pass through while sending back a ghostly semblance of you.
Plutarch’s dead; it is time to bury his ‘moral’ that anyone should simply reflect the ideas of another. You neither have to see the world through reflections nor have to mirror the thoughts of others. Crack some mirrors. Get to the truth behind the reflective surfaces. There are already too many useless mirrors adorned with gold and precious stones in the public forum.
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