Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those of inferior breed are paired with inferiors--the latter will ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers.

And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown.

The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children; care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring; and if necessary other nurses may also be hired.

The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants.

'Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children.' And quite right too, I said, that they should.
The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty years--from twenty-five, when he has 'passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,' to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a woman--from twenty to forty.