of those who may be held to be well brought up), is nurtured
on the plainest food attainable, with the scantiest addition of meat
or other condiments; whilst as to wine they train them either to total
abstinence or to take it highly diluted with water. And in imitation,
as it were, of the handicraft type, since the majority of artificers are
sedentary, (5) we, the rest of the Hellenes, are content that our girls
should sit quietly and work wools. That is all we demand of them. But
how are we to expect that women nurtured in this fashion should produce
a splendid offspring?

(4) Cf. a fragment of Critias cited by Clement, "Stromata," vi. p.
741, 6; Athen. x. 432, 433; see "A Fragment of Xenophon" (?), ap.
Stob. "Flor." 88. 14, translated by J. Hookham Frere, "Theognis
Restitutus," vol. i. 333; G. Sauppe, "Append. de Frag. Xen." p.
293; probably by Antisthenes (Bergk. ii. 497).

(5) Or, "such technical work is for the most part sedentary."

Lycurgus pursued a different path. Clothes were things, he held, the
furnishing of which might well enough be left to female slaves. And,
believing that the highest function of a free woman was the bearing of
children, in the first place he insisted on the training of the body
as incumbent no less on the female than the male; and in pursuit of the
same idea instituted rival contests in running and feats of strength
for women as for men. His belief was that where both parents were strong
their progeny would be found to be more vigorous.

And so again after marriage. In view of the fact that immoderate
intercourse is elsewhere permitted during the earlier period of
matrimony, he adopted a principle directly opposite. He laid it down
as an ordinance that a man should be ashamed to be seen visiting the
chamber of his wife, whether going in or coming out. When they did meet
under such restraint the mutual longing of these lovers could not but be
increased, and the fruit which might spring from such intercourse
would tend to be more robust than theirs whose affections are cloyed
by satiety. By a farther step in the same direction he refused to allow
marriages to be contracted (6) at any period of life according to the
fancy of the parties concerned. Marriage, as he ordained it, must only
take place in the prime of bodily vigour, (7) this too being, as he
believed, a condition conducive to the production of healthy offspring.
Or again, to meet the case which might occur