These principles are engraved in nature and confer upon you a duty to pay the most scrupulous attention to your conduct, your manners, and your behaviour. All right, I can hear some of you. You wish to cite exceptions to make a contrary case. After all there are women who do not bear children. Some women do live licentious lives.
Some women are indeed strong.
But exceptions do not overturn the general laws of nature, so long and so firmly established. In any culture where women become strong, men become stronger. Where men become soft, women become softer. I have been told. It is true that Plato assigns the same gymnastics to men and women alike and in the process gotten rid of the family.