"who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed existence. But if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired."
In other words, in Plato's mind a woman ranks half-way between a man and a brute. "Woman's nature," he says, "is inferior to that of men in capacity for virtue" (Laws, VI., 781); and his idea of ennobling a woman consists in making her resemble a man, giving her the same education, the same training in athletics and warlike exercises, in wrestling naked with each other, even though the old and ugly would be laughed at (Republic, Bk. V.). Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, will, in his ideal republic, go to war together.
"Let a man go out to war from twenty to sixty years, and for a woman if there appear any need of making use of her in military service, let the time of service be after she shall have brought forth children up to fifty years of age" (Laws, VI., 785).
Having thus abolished woman, except as a breeder of sons, Plato proceeds to eliminate marriage and morality. "The brave man is to have more wives than others, and he is to have first choice in such matters more than others" (Republic, V., 468). All wives, however, must be in common, no man having a monopoly of a woman. Nor must there be any choice or preference for individuals. The mothers are to be arranged by officials, who will see that the good pair with the good, the bad with the bad, the offspring of the latter being destroyed, just as is done in the breeding of animals. Maternal and filial love also must be abolished, infants being taken from their mothers and educated in common. Nor must husband and wife remain together longer than is necessary for the perpetuation of the species. This is the only object of marriage in Plato's opinion; for he recommends (Laws, VI., 784) that if a couple have no children after being married ten years, they should be "divorced for their mutual benefit."
In all history there is not a more extraordinary spectacle than that presented by the greatest philosopher of Greece, proposing in his ideal republic to eliminate every variety of family affection, thus degrading the relations of the sexes to a level inferior in some respects even to that of Australian savages, who at least allow mothers to rear their own children. And this philosopher, the most radical enemy love has ever known—practically a champion of promiscuity—has, by a strange irony of fate, lent his name to the purest and most exalted form of love![307]
SPARTAN OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOVE
Had Plato lived a few centuries earlier he might have visited at least one Greek state where his barbarous ideal of the sexual relations was to a considerable extent realized. The Spartan law-maker Lycurgus shared his views regarding marriage, and had the advantage of being able to enforce them. He, too, believed that human beings should be bred like cattle. He laughed, so Plutarch tells us in his biographic sketch, at those who, while exercising care in raising dogs and horses, allowed unworthy husbands to have offspring. This, in itself, was a praiseworthy thought; but the method adopted by Lycurgus to overcome that objection was subversive of all morality and affection. He considered it advisable that among worthy men there should be a community of wives and children, for which purpose he tried to suppress jealousy, ridiculing those who insisted on a conjugal monopoly and who even engaged in fights on account of it. Elderly men were urged to share their wives with younger men and adopt the children as their own; and if a man considered another's wife particularly prolific or virtuous he was not to hesitate to ask for her. Bridegrooms followed the custom of capturing their brides. An attendant, after cutting off the bride's hair and putting a man's garment on her, left her alone in the dark, whereupon her bridegroom visited her, returning soon, however, to his comrades. For months—sometimes until after children had been born—the husband would thus be unable to see his wife.
Reading Greek literature in the light of modern science, it is interesting to note that we have in the foregoing account unmistakable allusions to several primitive customs which have prevailed among savages and barbarians in all parts of the world.[308] The Greek writers, ignorant of the revelations of anthropology regarding the evolution of human habits, assumed such customs to have been originated by particular lawgivers. This was natural enough and pardonable under the circumstances; but how any modern writer can consider such customs (whether aboriginal or instituted by lawgivers) especially favorable to love, passes my comprehension. Yet one of the best informed of my critics assured me that "in Sparta love was made a part of state policy, and opportunities were contrived for the young men and women to see each other at public games and become enamored." As usual in such cases, the writer ignores the details regarding these Spartan opportunities for seeing one another and falling in love, which would have spoiled his argument by indicating what kind of "love" was in question here.
Plutarch relates that Lycurgus made the girls strip naked and attend certain festivals and dance in that state before the youths, who were also naked. Bachelors who refused to marry were not allowed to attend these dances, which, as Plutarch adds with characteristic Greek naïveté, were "a strong incentive to marriage." The erudite C.O. Müller, in his history of the Doric race (II., 298), while confessing that in all his reading of Greek books he had not come across a single instance of an Athenian in love with a free-born woman and marrying her because of a strong attachment, declares that Sparta was somewhat different, personal attachments having been possible there because the young men and women were brought together at festivals and dances; but he has the acumen to see that this love was "not of a romantic nature."[309]