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Question 87. Why do they part the hair of women
when they are married with the point of a spear?
Solution. What if it be a significant ceremony, showing
that they took their first wives in marriage by force of arms
and war? Or is it that they may instruct them that they
are to dwell with husbands that are soldiers and warriors,
and that they should put on such ornamental attire as is
not luxurious or lascivious, but plain? So Lycurgus commanded that all the gates and tops of houses should be
built with saw and hatchet, and no other sort of workmen's
instrument should be used about them; yea, he rejected
all gayety and superfluity. Or doth this action parabolically intimate divorce, as that marriage can be dissolved
only by the sword? Or is it that most of these nuptial
ceremonies relate to Juno? For a spear is decreed sacred
to Juno, and most of her statues are supported by a spear,
and she is surnamed Quiritis, and a spear of old was called
quiris, wherefore they surname Mars Quirinus?
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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