[930d]
and the number which constitutes a bare sufficiency of children shall be fixed by the law at one of each sex. Whenever, in spite of agreement as to who a child's parents are, a decision is required as to which parent the child should follow, the rule is this1: in all cases where a slave-woman has been mated with a slave or with a free man or a freedman, the child shall belong to the slave-woman's master; but if a free woman mates with a slave, the issue shall belong to the slave's master; and if the child be a master's by his own slave-woman, or a mistress's by her own slave, and the facts of the case are quite clear, then the women officials shall send away the woman's child, together with its father,
1 The object of this rule dealing with irregular connections between free citizens and slaves is to prevent any of slave descent acquiring rights of property in the State.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.
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