Socrates
Athenian philosopher, put to death in 399 BCE. In Xenophon's Household Management he tells what he learned from Ischomachus about running a household.
c. 470–399 BCE
A young wife learns to run the house
Xenophon, Oeconomicus (Household Management), chapters 7–9 (about 360 BCE), in the edition of E. C. Marchant (Oxford, 1900) · about 360 BCE; the exact year is not known
Καὶ τί ἄν, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐπισταμένην αὐτὴν παρέλαβον, ἣ ἔτη μὲν οὔπω πεντεκαίδεκα γεγονυῖα ἦλθε πρὸς ἐμέ, τὸν δ’ ἔμπροσθεν χρόνον ἔζη ὑπὸ πολλῆς ἐπιμελείας ὅπως ὡς ἐλάχιστα μὲν ὄψοιτο, ἐλάχιστα δ’ ἀκούσοιτο, ἐλάχιστα δ’ ἔροιτο;
And what, Socrates, he said, could she have known when I took her, she who came to me not yet fifteen, and till then had lived under close watch, so that she would see as little as possible, hear as little, and ask as little?