Socrates applied as we described will effect.” “Surely.” “Then the institution we proposed is not only possible but the best for the state.” “That is so.” “The women of the guardians, then, must strip, since they will be clothed with virtue as a garment, and must take their part with the men in war and the other duties of civic guardianship and have no other occupation. But in these very duties lighter tasks must be assigned to the women than to the men

Socrates because of their weakness as a class. But the man who ridicules unclad women, exercising because it is best that they should, “plucks the unripe fruit” of laughter and does not know, it appears, the end of his laughter nor what he would be at. For the fairest thing that is said or ever will be said is this, that the helpful is fair and the harmful foul.” “Assuredly.”

“In this matter, then, of the regulation of women, we may say that we have surmounted one of the waves of our paradox

and have not been quite swept away by it in ordaining that our guardians and female guardians must have all pursuits in common, but that in some sort the argument concurs with itself in the assurance that what it proposes is both possible and beneficial.” “It is no slight wave that you are thus escaping.” “You will not think it a great one,” I said, “when you have seen the one that follows.” “Say on then and show me,” said he. “This,” said I, “and all that precedes has for its sequel, in my opinion, the following law.” “What?” “That these women shall all be common to all the men,

and that none shall cohabit with any privately; and that the children shall be common, and that no parent shall know its own offspring nor any child its parent.” “This is a far bigger paradox than the other, and provokes more distrust as to its possibility and its utility.” “I presume,” said I, “that there would be no debate about its utility, no denial that the community of women and children would be the greatest good, supposing it possible. But I take it that its possibility or the contrary

would be the chief topic of contention.” “Both,” he said, “would be right sharply debated.” “You mean,” said I, “that I have to meet a coalition of arguments. But I expected to escape from one of them, and that if you agreed that the thing was beneficial, it would remain for me to speak only of its feasibility.” “You have not escaped detection,” he said, “in your attempted flight, but you must render an account of both.”

Socrates “I must pay the penalty,” I said, “yet do me this much grace:

Socrates Permit me to take a holiday, just as men of lazy minds are wont to feast themselves on their own thoughts when they walk alone. Such persons, without waiting to discover how their desires may be realized, dismiss that topic to save themselves the labor of deliberating about possibilities and impossibilities, assume their wish fulfilled, and proceed to work out the details in imagination, and take pleasure in portraying what they will do when it is realized, thus making still more idle a mind that is idle without that. I too now succumb to this weakness

Socrates and desire to postpone and examine later the question of feasibility, but will at present assume that, and will, with your permission, inquire how the rulers will work out the details in practice, and try to show that nothing could be more beneficial to the state and its guardians than the effective operation of our plan. This is what I would try to consider first together with you, and thereafter the other topic, if you allow it.” “I do allow it,” he said: “proceed with the inquiry.” “I think, then,” said I, “that the rulers,

Socrates if they are to deserve that name, and their helpers likewise, will, the one, be willing to accept orders, and the other, to give them, in some things obeying our laws, and imitating them in others which we leave to their discretion.” “Presumably.” “You, then, the lawgiver,” I said, “have picked these men and similarly will select to give over to them women as nearly as possible of the same nature. And they, having houses and meals in common, and no private possessions of that kind,

Socrates will dwell together, and being commingled in gymnastics and in all their life and education, will be conducted by innate necessity to sexual union. Is not what I say a necessary consequence?” “Not by the necessities of geometry,” he said, “but by those of love, which are perhaps keener and more potent than the other to persuade and constrain the multitude.”

“They are, indeed,” I said; “but next, Glaucon, disorder and promiscuity in these unions or

in anything else they do would be an unhallowed thing in a happy state and the rulers will not suffer it.” “It would not be right,” he said. “Obviously, then, we must arrange marriages, sacramental so far as may be. And the most sacred marriages would be those that were most beneficial.”

Socrates “By all means.” “How, then, would the greatest benefit result? Tell me this, Glaucon. I see that you have in your house hunting-dogs and a number of pedigree cocks. Have you ever considered something about their unions and procreations?” “What?” he said. “In the first place,” I said, “among these themselves, although they are a select breed, do not some prove better than the rest?” “They do.” “Do you then breed from all indiscriminately, or are you careful to breed from the best?”

Socrates “From the best.” “And, again, do you breed from the youngest or the oldest, or, so far as may be, from those in their prime?” “From those in their prime.” “And if they are not thus bred, you expect, do you not, that your birds and hounds will greatly degenerate?” “I do,” he said. “And what of horses and other animals?” I said; “is it otherwise with them?” “It would be strange if it were,” said he. “Gracious,” said I, “dear friend, how imperative, then, is our need of the highest skill in our rulers, if the principle holds also for mankind.”

Socrates “Well, it does,” he said, “but what of it?” “This,” said I, “that they will have to employ many of those drugs of which we were speaking. We thought that an inferior physician sufficed for bodies that do not need drugs but yield to diet and regimen. But when it is necessary to prescribe drugs we know that a more enterprising and venturesome physician is required.” “True; but what is the pertinency?” “This,” said I: “it seems likely that our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception

Socrates for the benefit of their subjects. We said, I believe, that the use of that sort of thing was in the category of medicine.” “And that was right,” he said. “In our marriages, then, and the procreation of children, it seems there will be no slight need of this kind of “right.”” “How so?” “It follows from our former admissions,” I said, “that the best men must cohabit with the best women in as many cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the fewest,

Socrates and that the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other not, if the flock is to be as perfect as possible. And the way in which all this is brought to pass must be unknown to any but the rulers, if, again, the herd of guardians is to be as free as possible from dissension.” “Most true,” he said.

“We shall, then, have to ordain certain festivals and sacrifices, in which we shall bring together the brides and the bridegrooms, and our poets must compose hymns

Socrates suitable to the marriages that then take place. But the number of the marriages we will leave to the discretion of the rulers, that they may keep the number of the citizens as nearly as may be the same, taking into account wars and diseases and all such considerations, and that, so far as possible, our city may not grow too great or too small.” “Right,” he said. “Certain ingenious lots, then, I suppose, must be devised so that the inferior man at each conjugation may blame chance and not the rulers.” “Yes, indeed,” he said.

“And on the young men, surely, who excel in war and other pursuits we must bestow honors and prizes, and, in particular, the opportunity of more frequent intercourse with the women, which will at the same time be a plausible pretext for having them beget as many of the children as possible.” “Right.” “And the children thus born will be taken over by the officials appointed for this, men or women or both, since, I take it, the official posts too are common to women and men.

The offspring of the good, I suppose, they will take to the pen or créche, to certain nurses who live apart in a quarter of the city, but the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them.” “That is the condition,” he said, “of preserving the purity of the guardians’ breed.” “They will also supervise the nursing of the children, conducting the mothers to the pen when their breasts are full, but employing every device

to prevent anyone from recognizing her own infant. And they will provide others who have milk if the mothers are insufficient. But they will take care that the mothers themselves shall not suckle too long, and the trouble of wakeful nights and similar burdens they will devolve upon the nurses, wet and dry.” “You are making maternity a soft job for the women of the guardians.” “It ought to be,” said I, “but let us pursue our design. We said that the offspring should come from parents in their prime.”

“True.” “Do you agree that the period of the prime may be fairly estimated at twenty years for a woman and thirty for a man?” “How do you reckon it?” he said. “The women,” I said, “beginning at the age of twenty, shall bear for the state to the age of forty, and the man shall beget for the state from the time he passes his prime in swiftness in running to the age of fifty-five.”