LYCURGAN LAWS.--According to Plutarch, the regulations enforced by Lycurgus, so far from encouraging licentiousness of the women, such as afterwards prevailed in Sparta, did just the reverse, as adultery was not known among them. That the system was beneficial to the State by tending to secure healthy offspring is probable; but Lycurgus took other means of bringing about this result. His requiring girls to dance naked in public was intended to teach them modesty. But we are told further: "He ordered the virgins to exercise themselves in running, wrestling and throwing quoits and darts, that their bodies being strong and vigorous, the children produced by them might be the same; and that, thus fortified by exercise, they might the better support the pangs of childbirth, and be delivered with safety." Moreover, he provided against the propagation of disease and deformation by directing that only such children should be reared as passed examination by the most ancient men of the tribe. If a child were strong and well-proportioned, they gave orders for its education and assigned it one of the nine thousand shares of land. Thus infanticide was a recognized part of the Spartan system, as it was in that of Plato. The elders of the tribe were very careful about the nurses to whom the children were assigned. When seven years old, the children were enrolled in companies, where they were all kept under the same order and discipline, and had their exercises and recreations in common. The boy of best conduct and courage was made captain, and their whole education was one of obedience. As for learning, Plutarch says they had just what was absolutely necessary; and certainly it was not such as could be recommended for imitation in these days. Xenophon, in his essay on "The Lacedemonian Republic," adds little to what Plutarch tells us with reference to the marriage regulations of Lycurgus. He remarks, however, that marriage was not allowed until the body was in full strength, as this was conducive "to the procreation of a robust and manly offspring." He affirms, also, that those who were allowed by arrangement to associate with other men's wives were men who had an aversion to living with a wife of their own!