Plato, Laws

[925a] In like manner, if a man leaves female children, the right of kinship shall proceed always by degrees of consanguinity, going up through brothers and brother's children, first the males, and secondly the females in one line. The suitability or otherwise of the time of marriage the judge shall decide by inspection, viewing the males naked and the females naked down to the navel. And if there be in the family a lack of kinsmen as far as brother's grandchildren, and likewise as far as grandfather's children, whomsoever of the other citizens the girl, aided by her guardians, shall choose, that man (if both he and the girl are willing) [925b] shall become the heir of the deceased and the spouse of his daughter. But obstacles often occur, and there might be times when there was an unusual dearth of such men in the city itself: so if any girl, being at a loss to find a spouse on the spot, sees one that has emigrated to a colony and desires that he should become heir to her father's property, if so be that he is related, he shall proceed to the lot, according to the ordinance of the law; but if he be outside the kin, and there be no one of near kin in the State, [925c] then by the choice of the guardians and of the daughter of the deceased he shall be entitled to marry and to take the lot of the intestate man on his return home. Whosoever dies intestate, being without any issue, male or female, in his case all other matters shall be governed by the previous law; and a man and woman from the family shall in each such instance go into the deserted house as joint assignees, and their claim to the lot shall be made valid; [925d] and the female claims to inheritance shall come in this order—first, a sister; second, a brother's daughter; third, a sister's daughter; fourth, a father's sister; fifth, a father's brother's daughter; sixth, a father's sister's daughter; and these shall share the home with the male kinsmen according to the degree of relationship and right, as we previously enacted. Now we must not fail to notice how burdensome such a law may prove, in that sometimes it harshly orders the next of kin to the deceased to marry his kinswoman, and that it appears to overlook the thousands of impediments which in human life [925e] prevent men from being willing to obey such orders and cause them to prefer any other alternative, however painful, in cases where either of the parties ordered to marry is suffering from diseases or defects of mind or body. Some might suppose that the lawgiver is paying no heed to these considerations, but they would be wrong. On behalf, therefore, of the lawgiver as well as of him to whom the law applies let a kind of general prelude be uttered, requesting those to the order is given to pardon the lawgiver because it is impossible for him, in his care for the public interests, to control also the private misfortunes which befall individuals,