h impunity; and let the same
regulations hold about women: let not a woman be allowed to appear
abroad, or receive honour, or go to nuptial and birthday festivals, if
she in like manner be written up as acting disorderly and cannot obtain
a verdict. And if, when they themselves have done begetting children
according to the law, a man or woman have connexion with another man
or woman who are still begetting children, let the same penalties be
inflicted upon them as upon those who are still having a family; and
when the time for procreation has passed let the man or woman who
refrains in such matters be held in esteem, and let those who do not
refrain be held in the contrary of esteem--that is to say, disesteem.
Now, if the greater part of mankind behave modestly, the enactments of
law may be left to slumber; but, if they are disorderly, the enactments
having been passed, let them be carried into execution. To every man the
first year is the beginning of life, and the time of birth ought to
be written down in the temples of their fathers as the beginning of
existence to every child, whether boy or girl. Let every phratria have
inscribed on a whited wall the names of the successive archons by whom
the years are reckoned. And near to them let the living members of the
phratria be inscribed, and when they depart life let them be erased. The
limit of marriageable ages for a woman shall be from sixteen to twenty
years at the longest,--for a man, from thirty to thirty-five years; and
let a woman hold office at forty, and a man at thirty years. Let a man
go out to war from twenty to sixty years, and for a woman, if there
appear any need to make 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; and let regard be had to what is possible and suitable to each.

BOOK VII.

And now, assuming children of both sexes to have been born, it will
be proper for us to consider, in the next place, their nurture and
education; this cannot be left altogether unnoticed, and yet may be
thought a subject fitted rather for precept and admonition than for
law. In private life there are many little things, not always apparent,
arising out of the pleasures and pains and desires of individuals, which
run counter to the intention of the legislator, and make the characters
of the citizens various and dissimilar:--this is an evil in states; for
by reason of their smallnes