are cloyed by satiety. By a farther step in the same direction he
refused to allow marriages to be contracted[6] at any period of life
according to the fancy of the parties concerned. Marriage, as he
ordained it, must only take place in the prime of bodily vigour,[7]
this too being, as he believed, a condition conducive to the
production of healthy offspring. Or again, to meet the case which
might occur of an old man[8] wedded to a young wife. Considering the
jealous watch which such husbands are apt to keep over their wives, he
introduced a directly opposite custom; that is to say, he made it
incumbent on the aged husband to introduce some one whose qualities,
physical and moral, he admired, to play the husband's part and to
beget him children. Or again, in the case of a man who might not
desire to live with a wife permanently, but yet might still be anxious
to have children of his own worthy the name, the lawgiver laid down a
law[9] in his behalf. Such a one might select some woman, the wife of
some man, well born herself and blest with fair offspring, and, the
saction and consent of her husband first obtained, raise up children
for himself through her.

[6] "The bride to be wooed and won." The phrase {agesthai} perhaps
points to some primitive custom of capturing and carrying off the
bride, but it had probably become conventional.

[7] Cf. Plut. "Lycurg," 15 (Clough, i. 101). "In their marriages the
husband carried off his bride by a sort of force; nor were their
brides ever small and of tender years, but in their full bloom and
ripeness."

[8] Cf. Plut. "Lycurg." 15 (Clough, i. 103).