The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

children, and we will only make a few
general remarks at present. The constitution of an athlete is not
suited to the life of a citizen, or to health, or to the
procreation of children, any more than the valetudinarian or
exhausted constitution, but one which is in a mean between them. A
man’s constitution should be inured to labor, but not to labor
which is excessive or of one sort only, such as is practiced by
athletes; he should be capable of all the actions of a freeman.
These remarks apply equally to both parents.
    Women who are with child should be careful of themselves; they
should take exercise and have a nourishing diet. The first of these
prescriptions the legislator will easily carry into effect by
requiring that they shall take a walk daily to some temple, where
they can worship the gods who preside over birth. Their minds,
however, unlike their bodies, they ought to keep quiet, for the
offspring derive their natures from their mothers as plants do from
the earth.
    As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law
that no deformed child shall live, but that on the ground of an
excess in the number of children, if the established customs of the
state forbid this (for in our state population has a limit), no
child is to be exposed, but when couples have children in excess,
let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may
or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question
of life and sensation.
    And now, having determined at what ages men and women are to
begin their union, let us also determine how long they shall
continue to beget and bear offspring for the state; men who are too
old, like men who are too young, produce children who are defective
in body and mind; the children of very old men are weakly. The
limit then, should be the age which is the prime of their
intelligence, and this in most persons, according to the notion of
some poets who measure life by periods of seven years, is about
fifty; at four or five years or later, they should cease from
having families; and from that time forward only cohabit with one
another for the sake of health; or for some similar reason.
    As to adultery, let it be held disgraceful, in general, for any
man or woman to be found in any way unfaithful when they are
married, and called husband and wife. If during the time of bearing
children anything of the sort occur, let the guilty person be
punished with a loss of privileges in proportion to the
offense.
XVII
    After the children have been born, the manner of rearing them
may be supposed to have a great effect on their bodily strength. It
would appear from the example of animals, and of those nations who
desire to create the military habit, that the food which has most
milk in it is best suited to human beings; but the less wine the
better, if they would escape diseases. Also all the motions to
which children can be subjected at their early age are very useful.
But in order to preserve their tender limbs from distortion, some
nations have had recourse to mechanical appliances which straighten
their bodies. To accustom children to the cold from their earliest
years is also an excellent practice, which greatly conduces to
health, and hardens them for military service. Hence many
barbarians have a custom of plunging their children at birth into a
cold stream; others, like the Celts, clothe them in a light wrapper
only. For human nature should be early habituated to endure all
which by habit it can be made to endure; but the process must be
gradual. And children, from their natural warmth, may be easily
trained to bear cold. Such care should attend them in the first
stage of life.
    The next period lasts to the age of five; during this no demand
should be made upon the child for study or labor, lest its growth
be impeded; and there should be sufficient motion to prevent the
limbs from being inactive. This can be secured, among other ways,
by amusement, but the amusement should not be vulgar or tiring or
effeminate. The Directors of Education, as they are termed, should
be careful what tales or stories the children hear, for all such
things are designed to prepare the way for the business of later
life, and should be for the most part imitations of the occupations
which they will hereafter pursue in earnest. Those are wrong who in
their laws attempt to check the loud crying and screaming of
children, for these contribute towards their growth, and, in a
manner, exercise their