Cecrops seems to have been the first to introduce among the Athenians the formal marriage ceremony with all its solemn and binding obligations. The ancient Greeks early decided that marriage was a private as well as a public necessity, and the Spartans treated celibacy as a crime. Lycurgus made laws so that those who married too late, or unsuitably, or not at all, could be treated like ordinary criminals, and not only was it unrespectable to be a bachelor, but it was dangerous. Plato preached that a man should consider the welfare of his country rather than his own pleasure, and that if he did not marry before he was thirty-five he should be punished severely. The Spartans advocated marriage for the reason that they wanted more children born to the state, and when a married woman gave birth to no children she was made to cohabit with another man. The Spartan King, Archidamus, fell in love with and married a very little woman, which so incensed the people that they fined him: they did not believe in marriage for love, but in marriage for big, sturdy offspring. Often, fathers would choose brides for their sons, and husbands for their daughters, who had never seen each other, and compel them to marry. In Greece, until Aristotle put a stop to it, the custom of buying wives was common. By the Romans, as well as by the Jews and Greeks, marriage was deemed an imperative duty; and parents were reprehended if they did not obtain husbands for their daughters by the time they were twenty-five. The Roman law recognized monogamy only, and polygamy was prohibited in the whole empire. Hence, the former became practically the rule in all Christiandom, and was introduced into the canon law of the Eastern and Western churches. During the time of Augustus, bachelorhood became fashionable, and to check the evil, as well as to lessen the alarming number of divorces, which were also getting fashionable, Augustus imposed a wife tax on all who persisted in the luxury of celibacy. The superstition that some days and months are unlucky or lucky for weddings seems to have originated with the Romans, May and February being thought unpropitious, while June was particularly favorable to happy marriages. These beliefs were based on things which cannot possibly concern people of other climes and religions, and, like all superstitions, are unfounded and absurd.