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An effort should be made to yoke in marriage those who cannot resist their desires, and who are deaf to admonitions. For marriage is the most secure bond for youth. One should, however, betroth to his sons women who are not greatly above them either in birth or wealth. The maxim Keep to your own place The figure is said to be derived from the laguage of boys whipping tops. It is attributed to Pittachus by Diogenes Laertius, i. 4. 8; cf. The Palatine Anthology, vii. 89 (in L.C.L. The Greek Anthology, vol. ii. p. 63). A similar expression (from the race-track) may be found in Aristophanes, Clouds, 25. is wise, since those who take to wife women far above themselves unwittingly become not the husbands of their wives, but the slaves of their wives’ dowries.
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I will add but little more and then conclude my suggestions. Fathers ought above all, by not misbehaving and by doing as they ought to do, to make themselves a manifest example to their children, so that the latter, by looking at their fathers’ lives as at a mirror, may be deterred from disgraceful deeds and words. For those who are themselves involved in the same errors as those for which they rebuke their erring sons, unwittingly accuse themselves in their sons’ name. If the life they lead is wholly bad, they are not free to admonish even their slaves, let alone their sons. Besides, they are likely to become counsellors and instructors to their sons in their wrongdoing. For, wherever old men are lacking in decency, young men too are sure to be most shameless. Plato, Laws, 729 C; also cited or referred to by Plutarch, Moralia, 71 B, 144 F and 272 C.
