Geographers
declare such to be the fact; they say that in part of Upper Libya,
where the women are common, nevertheless the children who are born are
assigned to their respective fathers on the ground of their
likeness. And some women, like the females of other animals- for
example, mares and cows- have a strong tendency to produce offspring
resembling their parents, as was the case with the Pharsalian mare
called Honest.
IV
Other evils, against which it is not easy for the authors of such
a community to guard, will be assaults and homicides, voluntary as
well as involuntary, quarrels and slanders, all which are most
unholy acts when committed against fathers and mothers and near
relations, but not equally unholy when there is no relationship.
Moreover, they are much more likely to occur if the relationship is
unknown, and, when they have occurred, the customary expiations of
them cannot be made. Again, how strange it is that Socrates, after
having made the children common, should hinder lovers from carnal
intercourse only, but should permit love and familiarities between
father and son or between brother and brother, than which nothing
can be more unseemly, since even without them love of this sort is
improper. How strange, too, to forbid intercourse for no other
reason than the violence of the pleasure, as though the relationship
of father and son or of brothers with one another made no difference.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53