“By no means, though frequently such things lead to more. But it is good when a wifeless man goes out to fight that he should have some special maid to think of. He is the more anxious to dispose of the enemy quickly and so come home again.
“If nothing comes of it when he returns, there is no harm. But if he return wearing a maiden’s favour and seek her out, he knows that she is not unwilling if her favour has been bravely borne in battle.
“The thought of a pair of white arms and red lips will make a man fight better than the thought of all the gold and honours in the land. Is it not so also in your country?”
“Indeed, I think it is somewhat this way the world over, and will be while men are men and women are women, though I have heard folk talk as though such things were dead and gone, and that women preferred gold and luxury to strong arms and brave hearts.
“Which talk must be untrue, since the thing that every woman desires in her secret heart more than all else beside is to bring forth straight-limbed children after the mould of their father: she does not desire to beget money-bags. Hence unless her nature be warped will she seek rather a clean-souled, strong-limbed man to father her children. Therefore I like to see my folk wearing their women’s favours. It is an omen for the generations to come.”
It was clear that Kyrlos and his kind had a refreshingly primitive outlook on life. I should like to have put him up to argue with a pacifist eugenist such as seem to swarm at home just now.
He was silent a space, and then he turned to me again.
“You said last night that you and your friends were wifeless men. It seems strange to me, for in our country it is uncommon that men of your years should be unwed. You are all close on thirty, I should say, while our folk marry mostly at twenty-five or six. Is the custom of your country other?”
“We marry somewhat later, Kyrlos. In our country it requires money to support wife and children, and but few young men have it. Further, since many of us wander much in strange parts, it comes that we marry later.”
“It seems impolitic that such a matter should depend on gold, for surely the State must suffer when men like you and your friends remain single.”