[309] My critics might have convicted me of a genuine blunder inasmuch as in my first book (78) I assumed that Plato “foresaw the importance of pre-matrimonial acquaintance as the basis of a rational and happy marriage choice.”  This was an unwarranted concession, because all that Plato recommended was that “the youths and maidens shall dance together, seeing and being seen naked,” after the Spartan manner.  This might lead to a rational choice of sound bodies, but romantic love implies an acquaintance of minds, and is altogether a more complicated process than the dog and cattle breeder’s procedure commended by Plato and Lycurgus.  I may add that in view of Lycurgus’s systematic encouragement of promiscuity, the boast of the Spartan Geradas (recorded by Plutarch) that there were no cases of adultery in Sparta, must be accepted either as broad sarcasm, or in the manner of Limburg-Brouwer, who declares (IV., 165) that the boast is “like saying that in a band of brigands there is not a single thief.”  Even from the cattle-breeding point of view Lycurgus proved a failure, for according to Aristotle (Pol. II., 9) the Spartans grew too lazy to bring up children, and rewards had to be offered for large families.

[310] See the evidence cited in Becker (III., 315) regarding Aristotle’s views as to the inferiority of women.  After comparing it with the remarks of other writers Becker sums up the matter by saying that “the virtue of which a woman was in those days considered capable did not differ very much from that of a faithful slave.”

[311] In the Odyssey (XV., 418) Homer speaks of “a Phoenician woman, handsome and tall.”  He makes Odysseus compare Nausicaea to Diana “in beauty, height, and bearing,” and in another place he declares that, like Diana among her nymphs, she o’ertops her companions by head and brow (VI., 152, 102).  However, this manner of measuring beauty with a yard-stick; indicates some progress over the savage and Oriental custom of making rotundity the criterion of beauty.

[312] Compare Menander, Frag.  Incert., 154:  [Greek:  gunaich ho didaskon gpammat ou kalos poiei].

[313] A homely but striking illustration may here be added.  In Africa the negroes are proud of their complexion and look with aversion on a white skin.  In the United States, knowing that a black skin is looked down on as a symbol of slavery or inferiority, they are ashamed of it.  The wife of an eminent Southern judge informed me that Georgia negroes believe that in heaven they will be white; and I have heard of one negro woman who declared that if she could become white by being flayed she would gladly submit to the torture.  Thus have ideas regarding the complexion changed the emotion of pride to the emotion of shame.