As citizenship was limited in the states of Greece, it became highly important that the citizens should perpetuate the state by marrying and having children. So the state would encourage marriage and make it honorable and likewise almost compulsory and unmarried men would not be wanted nor would marriage deferred till late in life be considered the best for the state. In both Athens and Sparta bachelors were subject to a legal penalty. In Athens those who held public office and were entrusted with public affairs had to be married, to have children, and to have estates in land. Sparta was quite severe on the bachelors. If a man delayed marriage after a specified age, he subjected himself to a number of penalties. One was for once each winter to go naked around the market-place and sing a song ridiculing his bachelorhood. Such men were not permitted to be present at the contests wherein young women engaged in a nude condition. Upon the celebration of a certain solemnity, the bachelors were dragged around the altar by the women who beat them with their fists. When these men became old they were not accorded that high respect which the young of Sparta was accustomed to pay to the aged. Monogamy was early established in Greece as the basis of society. There were some instances of polygamy or rather concubinage in the early ages and on some occasions where large number of men were lost in war or from other causes. This might have been resorted to in order to replenish the state but this was of rare occurrence. In early times in Greece divorce was in the hands of the husband and he could exercise it whenever he felt that he was justified but in later times this right was somewhat restricted. The Spartans seldom divorced their wives. In Athens divorce was easy for the man, but a bill of divorce was required to be presented to the magistrate in which the reasons for the divorce were set forth. They would, no doubt, have been more frequent had it not been that in divorce the husband had to restore the dowry to the wife or pay her a sum each month for her support. For a man to divorce his wife was considered a great dishonor to her. It was difficult for a woman to procure a divorce, Athens being more favorable to women in this respect than the other states of Greece. But here she had to present a bill of grievances to the magistrate and it required his action before separation could take place. "The terms expressing the separation of men and women from each other were different. The men were said to dismiss their wives; to loose them from their obligations; to cast them out; to send them away; to put them away. If a woman left her husband, it was termed simply to depart from him."[164]