The Republic — Plato

THE REPUBLIC

p. 149

True, I said ; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion ; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred ? Exactly. And how can marriages be made most beneficial? that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding? In what particulars ? Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others ? True. And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only ? From the best. And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? I choose only those of ripe age. And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate? Certainly. And the same of horses and of animals in general ? Undoubtedly. Good heavens ! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species ! Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill? Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. That is quite true, he said ; but to what are you alluding?

PLATO

I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects : we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. And we were very right. And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births. How so?

Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom, as possible ; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition.

Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. Very true.

Had we better not appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets : the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population?

There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. Certainly, he replied. We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers.

To be sure, he said. And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honors and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them ; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. True. And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men Yes

The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter ; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be. Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure.

They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognizes her own child ; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required.

Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children. Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme.

We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life? Very true. And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty years in a man's? Which years do you mean to include?

A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty ; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five. Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigor.

Anyone above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priests and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and