As for the division of the land among the citizens, in my
opinion, Lykurgus cannot be blamed for doing it, nor yet can Numa for
not doing it. The equality thus produced was the very foundation and
corner-stone of the Lacedaemonian constitution, while Numa had no motive
for disturbing the Roman lands, which had only been recently distributed
among the citizens, or to alter the arrangements made by Romulus, which
we may suppose were still in force throughout the country.
III. With regard to a community of wives and children, each took a wise
and statesman-like course to prevent jealousy, although the means
employed by each were different. A Roman who possessed a sufficient
family of his own might be prevailed upon by a friend who had no
children to transfer his wife to him, being fully empowered to give her
away, by divorce, for this purpose; but a Lacedaemonian was accustomed
to lend his wife for intercourse with a friend, while she remained
living in his house, and without the marriage being thereby dissolved.
Many, we are told, even invited those who, they thought, would beget
fine and noble children, to converse with their wives. The distinction
between the two customs seems to be this: the Spartans affected an
unconcern and insensibility about a matter which excites most men to
violent rage and jealousy; the Romans modestly veiled it by a legal
contract which seems to admit how hard it is for a man to give up his
wife to another.
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