It
is extremely bad for the children when the father is too young; for in
all animals whatsoever the parts of the young are imperfect, and are
more likely to be productive of females than males, and diminutive
also in size; the same thing of course necessarily holds true in men;
as a proof of this you may see in those cities where the men and women
usually marry very young, the people in general are very small and ill
framed; in child-birth also the women suffer more, and many of them
die. And thus some persons tell us the oracle of Traezenium should be
explained, as if it referred to the many women who were destroyed by
too early marriages, and not their gathering their fruits too soon. It
is also conducive to temperance not to marry too soon; for women who
do so are apt to be intemperate. It also prevents the bodies of men
from acquiring their full size if they marry before their growth is
completed; for this is the determinate period, which prevents any
further increase; for which reason the proper time for a woman to
marry is eighteen, for a man thirty-seven, a little more or less; for
when they marry at that time their bodies are in perfection, and they
will also cease to have children at a proper time; and moreover with
respect to the succession of the children, if they have them at the
time which may reasonably be expected, they will be just arriving into
perfection when their parents are sinking down under the load of
seventy years. And thus much for the time which is proper for
marriage; but moreover a proper season of the year should be observed,
as many persons do now, and appropriate the winter for this business.
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