In forming marriage connexions, Plato supposes that the public interest will prevail over private inclination. There was nothing in this very shocking to the notions of Greeks, among whom the feeling of love towards the other sex was almost deprived of sentiment or romance. Married life is to be regulated solely with a view to the good of the state. The newly-married couple are not allowed to absent themselves from their respective syssitia, even during their honeymoon; they are to give their whole mind to the procreation of children; their duties to one another at a later period of life are not a matter about which the state is equally solicitous. Divorces are readily allowed for incompatibility of temper. As in the Republic, physical considerations seem almost to exclude moral and social ones. To modern feelings there is a degree of coarseness in Plato's treatment of the subject. Yet he also makes some shrewd remarks on marriage, as for example, that a man who does not marry for money will not be the humble servant of his wife. And he shows a true conception of the nature of the family, when he requires that the newly-married couple 'should leave their father and mother,' and have a separate home. He also provides against extravagance in marriage festivals, which in some states of society, for instance in the case of the Hindoos, has been a social evil of the first magnitude. In treating of property, Plato takes occasion to speak of property in slaves. They are to be treated with perfect justice; but, for their own sake, to be kept at a distance. The motive is not so much humanity to the slave, of which there are hardly any traces (although Plato allows that many in the hour of peril have found a slave more attached than members of their own family), but the self-respect which the freeman and citizen owes to himself (compare Republic). If they commit crimes, they are doubly punished; if they inform against illegal practices of their masters, they are to receive a protection, which would probably be ineffectual, from the guardians of the law; in rare cases they are to be set free. Plato still breathes the spirit of the old Hellenic world, in which slavery was a necessity, because leisure must be provided for the citizen.