n thinly-peopled places, and in times of pressure. But when men had
once tried and been accustomed to a common table, experience showed that
the institution greatly conduced to security; and in some such manner
the custom of having common tables arose among you.

CLEINIAS: Likely enough.

ATHENIAN: I said that there may have been singularity and danger in
imposing such a custom at first, but that now there is not the same
difficulty. There is, however, another institution which is the natural
sequel to this, and would be excellent, if it existed anywhere, but at
present it does not. The institution of which I am about to speak is not
easily described or executed; and would be like the legislator 'combing
wool into the fire,' as people say, or performing any other impossible
and useless feat.

CLEINIAS: What is the cause, Stranger, of this extreme hesitation?

ATHENIAN: You shall hear without any fruitless loss of time. That which
has law and order in a state is the cause of every good, but that
which is disordered or ill-ordered is often the ruin of that which is
well-ordered; and at this point the argument is now waiting. For with
you, Cleinias and Megillus, the common tables of men are, as I said, a
heaven-born and admirable institution, but you are mistaken in leaving
the women unregulated by law. They have no similar institution of public
tables in the light of day, and just that part of the human race
which is by nature prone to secrecy and stealth on account of their
weakness--I mean the female sex--has been left without regulation by
the legislator, which is a great mistake. And, in consequence of this
neglect, many things have grown lax among you, which might have been
far better, if they had been only regulated by law; for the neglect of
regulations about women may not only be regarded as a neglect of half
the entire matter (Arist. Pol.), but in proportion as woman's nature
is inferior to that of men in capacity for virtue, in that degree the
consequence of such neglect is more than twice as important. The careful
consideration of this matter, and the arranging and ordering on a
common principle of all our institutions relating both to men and women,
greatly conduces to the happiness of the state. But at present, such
is the unfortunate condition of mankind, that no man of sense will even
venture to speak of common tables in places and cities in which they
have never been established at all; and how can any