Politics (The New Hackett Aristotle) by Aristotle

Author:Aristotle [Aristotle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781624666100
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Published: 2017-02-14T05:00:00+00:00

VII 16

If indeed, then, the legislator should see to it from the start that the bodies of children being reared are to develop in the best possible way, he must first |1334b30| supervise the union of the sexes, and determine when, and between what sorts of people, a marital relationship should be brought about. In legislating for this marital community, he should look both to the people involved and to their time of life, so that they will reach the same stage of life at the same time and there be no dissonance between their procreative capacities, |1334b35| the man still being capable of procreating but the woman not, or the woman capable but the man not.971 For these things produce conflicts and disagreements among them.

Next, he should also look to the succession of children. For children should not be too far removed in age from their fathers, |1334b40| since the gratitude of children is of no use to more elderly fathers, and the help of such fathers is of no use to their children, neither should they be too close in age, |1335a1| since this leads to many annoyances. For there is less respect in cases of this sort, just as among contemporaries, and the closeness in age is liable to cause disputes over the management of the household.

Further, to return to the point with which we started our discussion, the legislator should look to how the bodies of those who are born |1335a5| are to be in congruence with his wish.

Pretty much all these things come about by supervising one thing. For since it has been determined that men’s fertility, to speak of the majority of cases, comes to an end at a maximum age of seventy, and women’s at fifty, the starting-point of their sexual union in terms of their ages |1335a10| should be such that it reaches its decline at these times.

The coupling of young people, however, is a bad thing with a view to procreation. For in all animals the young are more likely to bear offspring that are imperfect, and they are more likely to give birth to offspring that are female and small in size, so that the same must occur in {184} human beings as well. The following is a sure sign of this. In all those |1335a15| cities in which the coupling of young men with young women is the custom, people are imperfect and undersized as regards their bodies.

Further, young women have longer labors, and more of them die in childbirth. That is why some people say that this is the cause of the oracle that was given to the Troezenians, |1335a20| namely, that many were dying because of the marrying off of younger women, and was not related to the harvesting of the crops.972

Further, with regard to temperance, it is advantageous for women to be given in marriage when they are older, since women who have had sex when they were young are believed to be more intemperate. Also,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.