away from the beautiful women, should rise up with anger and
hatred against the magistrates; and he thinks further that those
who do not deserve cohabitation with the more beautiful
women, should be deceived while the lots are being led out of
the city by the magistrates, so that at all times the women who
are suitable should fall to their lot, not those whom they desire.
This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among the inhab-
itants of the City of the Sun. For with them deformity is un-
known. When the women are exercised they get a clear com-
plexion, and become strong of limb, tall and agile, and with
them beauty consists in tallness and strength. Therefore, if
any woman dyes her face, so that it may become beautiful, or
uses high-heeled boots so that she may appear tall, or garments
with trains to cover her wooden shoes, she is condemned to cap-
ital punishment. But if the women should even desire them
they have no facility for doing these things. For who indeed
would give them this facility? Further, they assert that among
us abuses of this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of women.
By these means they lose their color and have pale complexions,
and become feeble and small. For this reason they are without
proper complexions, use high sandals, and become beautiful not
from strength, but from slothful tenderness. And thus they
ruin their own tempers and natures, and consequently those of
their offspring. Furthermore, if at any time a man is taken
captive with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are al-
lowed to converse and joke together and to give one another
garlands of flowers or leaves, and to make verses. But if the
race is endangered, by no means is further union between them
permitted. Moreover, the love born of eager desire is not
known among them; only that born of friendship.