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[7]
But to resume: the forms of friendship of which we have spoken are friendships of
equality, for both parties render the same benefit and wish the same good to each other,
or else exchange1 two different benefits, for instance pleasure and profit.
(These2 are less truly friendships, and less permanent, as we have
said; and opinions differ as to whether they are really friendships at all, owing to their
being both like and unlike the same thing. In view of their likeness to friendship based
on virtue they do appear to be friendships, for the one contains pleasure and the other
utility, and these are attributes of that form of friendship too; but in that friendship
based on virtue is proof against calumny, and permanent, while the others quickly change,
besides differing in many other respects, they appear not to be real friendships, owing to
their unlikeness to it.) 7.
But there is a different kind of friendship, which involves superiority of one party over
the other, for example, the friendship between father and son, and generally between an
older person and a younger, and that between husband and wife, and between any ruler and
the persons ruled. These friendships also vary among themselves. The friendship between
parents and children is not the same as that between ruler and ruled, nor indeed is the
friendship of father for son the same as that of son for father, nor that of husband for
wife as that of wife for husband; for each of these persons has a different excellence and
function, and also different motives for their regard, and so the affection and friendship
they feel are different.