When someone inquired why he had made a law that girls should be given in marriage without any dowry, he said, ‘So that some of them shall not be left unwedded because of lack of means, and some shall not be eagerly sought because of abundant wealth, but that each man, with an eye to the ways 1 [p. 365] of the maid, shall make virtue the basis of his choice.’ For this reason he also banished from the State all artificial enhancement of beauty. 2
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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