XX. The strangest of his remaining laws is that which declared
disfranchised a citizen who in a party conflict took neither side;
apparently his object was to prevent any one regarding home politics in
a listless, uninterested fashion, securing his own personal property,
and priding himself upon exemption from the misfortunes of his country,
and to encourage men boldly to attach themselves to the right party and
to share all its dangers, rather than in safety to watch and see which
side would be successful. That also is a strange and even ludicrous
provision in one of his laws, which permits an heiress, whose husband
proves impotent, to avail herself of the services of the next of kin to
obtain an heir to her estate. Some, however, say that this law rightly
serves men who know themselves to be unfit for marriage, and who
nevertheless marry heiresses for their money, and try to make the laws
override nature; for, when they see their wife having intercourse with
whom she pleases, they will either break off the marriage, or live in
constant shame, and so pay the penalty of their avarice and wrong-doing.
It is a good provision also, that the heiress may not converse with any
one, but only with him whom she may choose from among her husband's
relations, so that her offspring may be all in the family. This is
pointed at by his ordinance that the bride and bridegroom should be shut
in the same room and eat a quince together, and that the husband of an
heiress should approach her at least thrice in each month.
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