40
Furthermore, I had no patience with the perversity of men who take women in marriage and make them partners in all the relations of life, and then are not satisfied with the compacts which they have made but by their own lawless pleasures bring pain to those whom they expect never to cause them pain and who, though honest in all other partnerships, are without conscience in the partnership of marriage, when they ought to cherish this relationship the more faithfully inasmuch as it is more intimate and more precious than all others.
41
More than that, they are unconsciously storing up for themselves feuds and factions at home in the royal palace. And yet, if kings are to rule well, they must try to preserve harmony, not only in the states over which they hold dominion, but also in their own households and in their places of abode; for all these things are the works of temperance and justice.
42
Nor was I of the same mind as most kings in regard to the begetting of children. I did not think I should have some children by a woman of humbler station and others by one of higher degree, nor that I should leave after me bastard progeny, as well as progeny of legitimate birth; but that all my children should be able to trace their lineage back through the same father and the same mother to Evagoras, my father, among mortals, to the Aeacides among the demigods, and to ZeusAeacus, a descendant of Zeus, was father of Telamon, the father of Teucer. among the gods, and that not one of the children sprung from my loins should be cheated of this noble origin.
