and set not thyself against it, lest the Spartans take some counsel
against thee other than might be wished. We do not ask of thee the
putting away of the wife thou now hast; but do thou give to her all that
thou givest now, and at the same time take to thy house another wife in
addition to this one, to bear thee children." When they spoke to him
after this manner, Anaxandrides consented, and from this time forth he
kept two separate households, having two wives, a thing which, we are
told, was not by any means after the Spartan fashion.

Every inducement was offered to encourage matrimony, and bachelors were
the objects of general scorn and derision. "Those who continued
bachelors," says Plutarch, "were in a degree disfranchised by law; for
they were excluded from the sight of the public processions in which the
young men and maidens danced naked, and in the winter-time the officers
compelled them to walk naked round the market place, singing, as they
went, a certain song to their own disgrace, that they justly suffered
this punishment for disobeying the laws." Furthermore, at a certain
festival the women themselves sought to bring these misguided
individuals to a proper sense of their duty by dragging them round an
altar and continually inflicting blows upon them. Without doubt, the
maidens were all inclined to matrimony, as it enhanced their influence
and enabled them to fulfil their mission; and the rulers were ever ready
to provide husbands for them.

A kind of disgrace attached to childlessness. Men who were not fathers
were denied the respect and observance which the young men of Sparta
regularly paid their elders. On one occasion, Dercyllidas, a commander
of great renown, entered an assembly. A young Spartan, contrary to
custom, failed to rise at his approach. The veteran soldier was
surprised. "You have no sons," said the youth, "who will one day pay the
same honor to me." And public opinion justified the excuse.

The effects of the athletic training upon the physical nature of woman
were most commendable. The Spartan maiden was renowned throughout Greece
for preeminence in vigor of body and beauty of form. Even the Athenian
was impressed by this. Lysistrata, in the play of Aristophanes, in
greeting Lampito, the delegate from Sparta, who has come to a women's
conference, speaks thus:

"O dearest Laconian, O Lampito, welcome! How beautiful you look,
sweetest one! What a fresh color! How vigorous your body is!