This community of wives and children seems better suited to the
husbandmen than to the guardians, for if they have wives and
children in common, they will be bound to one another by weaker
ties, as a subject class should be, and they will remain obedient
and not rebel. In a word, the result of such a law would be just the
opposite of which good laws ought to have, and the intention of
Socrates in making these regulations about women and children would
defeat itself. For friendship we believe to be the greatest good of
states and the preservative of them against revolutions; neither is
there anything which Socrates so greatly lauds as the unity of the
state which he and all the world declare to be created by
friendship. But the unity which he commends would be like that of
the lovers in the Symposium, who, as Aristophanes says, desire to grow
together in the excess of their affection, and from being two to
become one, in which case one or both would certainly perish.
Whereas in a state having women and children common, love will be
watery; and the father will certainly not say 'my son,' or the son 'my
father.' As a little sweet wine mingled with a great deal of water
is imperceptible in the mixture, so, in this sort of community, the
idea of relationship which is based upon these names will be lost;
there is no reason why the so-called father should care about the son,
or the son about the father, or brothers about one another.
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