enalties on the unmarried
men. They were excluded from the festival of the Gymnopaedia, in honour
of Athene; and the magistrates ordered them during winter to walk naked
round the market-place, and while doing so to sing a song written
against themselves, which said that they were rightly served for their
disobedience to the laws; and also they were deprived of the respect and
observance paid by the young to the elders.

Thus it happened that no one blamed the young man for not rising before
Derkyllidas, famous general as he was. This youth kept his seat, saying,
"You have not begotten a son to rise before me."

Their marriage custom was for the husband to carry off his bride by
force. They did not carry off little immature girls, but grown up women,
who were ripe for marriage. After the bride had been carried off the
bridesmaid received her, cut her hair close to her head, dressed her in
a man's cloak and shoes, and placed her upon a couch in a dark chamber
alone. The bridegroom, without any feasting and revelry, but as sober as
usual, after dining at his mess, comes into the room, looses her virgin
zone, and, after passing a short time with her, retires to pass the
night where he was wont, with the other young men. And thus he
continued, passing his days with his companions, and visiting his wife
by stealth, feeling ashamed and afraid that any one in the house should
hear him, she on her part plotting and contriving occasions for meeting
unobserved. This went on for a long time, so that some even had children
born to them before they ever saw their wives by daylight. These
connections not only exercised their powers of self-restraint, but also
brought them together with their bodies in full vigour and their
passions unblunted by unchecked intercourse with each other, so that
their passion and love for each other's society remained unextinguished.

Having thus honoured and dignified the married state, he destroyed the
vain womanish passion of jealousy, for, while carefully avoiding any
disorder or licentiousness, he nevertheless permitted men to associate
worthy persons with them in the task of begetting children, and taught
them to ridicule those who insisted on the exclusive possession of their
wives, and who were ready to fight and kill people to maintain their
right. It was permitted to an elderly husband, with a young wife, to
associate with himself any well-born youth whom he might fancy, and to
adopt the offsp