STRANGER: But in those who were originally of a noble nature, and who have
been nurtured in noble ways, and in those only, may we not say that union
is implanted by law, and that this is the medicine which art prescribes for
them, and of all the bonds which unite the dissimilar and contrary parts of
virtue is not this, as I was saying, the divinest?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Where this divine bond exists there is no difficulty in
imagining, or when you have imagined, in creating the other bonds, which
are human only.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that, and what bonds do you mean?
STRANGER: Rights of intermarriage, and ties which are formed between
States by giving and taking children in marriage, or between individuals by
private betrothals and espousals. For most persons form marriage
connexions without due regard to what is best for the procreation of
children.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what way?
STRANGER: They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony are objects
not worthy even of a serious censure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is no need to consider them at all.
STRANGER: More reason is there to consider the practice of those who make
family their chief aim, and to indicate their error.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: They act on no true principle at all; they seek their ease and
receive with open arms those who are like themselves, and hate those who
are unlike them, being too much influenced by feelings of dislike.
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