We now proceed to solve the difficulties which superficial minds may
detect in this method, for which our predilection is manifest.
But this paragraph, which is in some sort a silent one, inasmuch as we
leave it to the commentaries which will be made in more than one home,
may serve as a pedestal for the imposing figure of Lycurgus, that
ancient legislator, to whom the Greeks are indebted for their
profoundest thoughts on the subject of marriage. May his system be
understood by future generations! And if modern manners are too much
given to softness to adopt his system in its entirety, they may at
least be imbued with the robust spirit of this admirable code.
3. ONE BED FOR BOTH.
On a night in December, Frederick the Great looked up at the sky,
whose stars were twinkling with that clear and living light which
presages heavy frost, and he exclaimed, "This weather will result in a
great many soldiers to Prussia."
The king expressed here, by a single phrase, the principal
disadvantage which results from the constant living together of
married people. Although it may be permitted to Napoleon and to
Frederick to estimate the value of a woman more or less according to
the number of her children, yet a husband of talent ought, according
to the maxims of the thirteenth Meditation, to consider
child-begetting merely as a means of defence, and it is for him to
know to what extent it may take place.
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