§ 64. No point in Plato’s scheme excites more sympathy nowadays with advanced thinkers than that of equalizing the sexes in education, and subjecting women to the same training and duties as men. For he held that, though nature had not made women as strong as men, and that their important functions in the production of the race put them under some inconveniences and disabilities, there was, nevertheless, no reason to assume any permanent difference in kind. If such a theory is thought revolutionary by most people in modern society, what must it have been in the days and among the people of Plato’s age! Here, again, what guided him was an exaggerated estimate of the liberty and importance of Spartan women, who, when young, were encouraged to exercise in public; and who, when married, maintained over their husbands an influence far exceeding that of women in other Greek households. But then we must not forget the small culture of the men, their devotion to military training, and the consequent necessity for women to use their own judgment in the management of their homes. § 65. On the other hand, if we may digress for a moment on account of the interest and importance of the subject, there is no valid reason why the physical production of the race should not receive infinitely more attention than it does within the bounds of our present social arrangements. In the first place, though the sentimental reasons for marrying are still put in the foreground, and though at wedding speeches and in amatory correspondences some divine predestination, or the sentimental compulsion called falling in love, is assumed the only efficient cause of marriages, we know that many reasonable considerations intervene and are the real motives of action. These motives--the acquisition of wealth or position or connection, the desire of home comforts and of a life independent of external amusements, a calm mutual respect--are commonly enough confessed even by the very people who parade sentimental reasons; and whenever a marriage appears suitable from rational considerations, no trouble is spared by match-makers to induce young people to imagine themselves drawn together by some subtle and sentimental affinity--like Plato’s guardians, who were to pretend the providential lot as their guide.