Apophthegmata Laconica

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

When someone inquired why he had made a law that girls should be given in marriage without any dowry, he said, So that some of them shall not be left unwedded because of lack of means, and some shall not be eagerly sought because of abundant wealth, but that each man, with an eye to the ways [*]( )

of the maid, shall make virtue the basis of his choice. For this reason he also banished from the State all artificial enhancement of beauty. [*](Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, vi. 6.)

He set limits to the time of marriage for both men and women, and, in answer to the man who inquired about this, he said, So that the offspring may be sturdy by being sprung from mature parents. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xv. (48 D), and Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 1. 6.)