prescribes for them, and of all the bonds which unite the dissimilar and

contrary parts of virtue is not this, as I was saying, the divinest?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: Where this divine bond exists there is no difficulty in

imagining, or when you have imagined, in creating the other bonds, which

are human only.

YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that, and what bonds do you mean?

STRANGER: Rights of intermarriage, and ties which are formed between

States by giving and taking children in marriage, or between individuals

by private betrothals and espousals. For most persons form marriage

connexions without due regard to what is best for the procreation of

children.

YOUNG SOCRATES: In what way?

STRANGER: They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony are

objects not worthy even of a serious censure.

YOUNG SOCRATES: There is no need to consider them at all.

STRANGER: More reason is there to consider the practice of those who

make family their chief aim, and to indicate their error.

123

Statesman