[
461a]
“That
is,” he said, “the maturity and prime for both of body
and mind.” “Then, if anyone older or younger than the
prescribed age meddles with procreation for the state, we shall say that his
error is an impiety and an injustice, since he is begetting for the city a
child whose birth, if it escapes discovery, will not be attended by the
sacrifices and the prayers which the priests and priestesses and the entire
city prefer at the ceremonial marriages, that ever better offspring may
spring from good sires
1 and from fathers helpful to
the state
[
461b]
sons more helpful still. But
this child will be born in darkness and conceived in foul
incontinence.” “Right,” he said.
“And the same rule will apply,” I said, “if
any of those still within the age of procreation goes in to a woman of that
age with whom the ruler has not paired him. We shall say that he is imposing
on the state a base-born, uncertified, and unhallowed child.”
“Most rightly,” he said. “But when, I take it,
the men and the women have passed the age of lawful procreation, we shall
leave the men free to form such relations
[
461c]
with whomsoever they please, except
2 daughter and mother and
their direct descendants and ascendants, and likewise the women, save with
son and father, and so on, first admonishing them preferably not even to
bring to light
3 anything whatever thus conceived, but if
they are unable to prevent a birth to dispose of it on the understanding
that we cannot rear such an offspring.” “All that sounds
reasonable,” he said; “but how are they to distinguish
one another's fathers and daughters,
[
461d]
and
the other degrees of kin that you have just mentioned?”
“They won't,” said I, “except that a man will
call all male offspring born in the tenth and in the seventh month after he
became a bridegroom his sons, and all female, daughters, and they will call
him father.
4 And, similarly, he will call their offspring
his grandchildren
5 and they will call his group
grandfathers and grandmothers. And all children born in the period in which
their fathers and mothers were procreating will regard one another as
brothers and sisters.
[
461e]
This will suffice
for the prohibitions of intercourse of which we just now spoke. But the law
will allow brothers and sisters to cohabit if the lot so falls out and the
Delphic oracle approves.” “Quite right,” said
he.
“This, then, Glaucon, is the
manner of the community of wives and children among the guardians. That it
is consistent with the rest of our polity and by far the best way is the
next point that we must get confirmed