Complete Works (331 page)

A
THENIAN
: We’ve now pretty well completed our provisions for the most important agreements that men make with each other, with the exception of those relating to orphans and the care and attention due to them from their guardians. So now we’ve more or less provided for the first topic, here’s the next thing on which we are obliged to impose some sort of [b] order. All our regulations must start from two basic facts: (a) people at the point of death like to settle their affairs by a will, (b) sometimes, by chance, they die intestate. What a difficult and contentious business it is, Clinias! That’s what I had in mind when I said we were ‘obliged’ to deal with it: to leave it unregulated is quite out of the question. If you allow a will unchallengeable validity whatever condition a man near the end of [c] his life may have been in when he drew it up, he might make any number of mutually inconsistent provisions that contradicted not only the spirit of the laws but also the inclinations of those who survive him, and indeed his own earlier intentions before he set out to make his will. After all, most of us, when we think death is at hand, just go to pieces and can’t think straight.

C
LINIAS
: How do you mean, sir?

A
THENIAN
: When a man is about to die, Clinias, he becomes refractory, and keeps harping on a principle that spreads alarm and despondency among legislators.

C
LINIAS
: How’s that?

A
THENIAN
: In his anxiety for complete authority he’s apt to express [d] himself with some warmth.

C
LINIAS
: To what effect?

A
THENIAN
: ‘Ye gods!’ says he, ‘it’s a fine thing if I’m not going to be allowed to give—or not give—my own property to anyone I please! Why shouldn’t I give more to one man and less to another depending on whether they have shown themselves good or bad friends to me? My illnesses, my old age and all my other various misfortunes have sorted them out well enough.’

C
LINIAS
: Well, sir, don’t you think that’s well said?

[e] A
THENIAN
: Clinias, my view is that the ancient lawgivers were too easy-going, and legislated on the basis of a superficial and inadequate appreciation of the human condition.

C
LINIAS
: How do you mean?

A
THENIAN
: My dear fellow, because they feared the line of argument I have mentioned, they passed the law allowing a man to dispose of his
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own property in his will exactly as he pleases. But when people have come to death’s door in your state, you and I will make a rather more appropriate response:

‘Friends, you “creatures of a day” in more senses than one, it’s difficult for you in your present circumstances to know the truth about your own property and also “know yourselves,” as the Delphic inscription puts it. Therefore, I, as legislator, rule that neither you nor this property of yours [b] belongs to yourselves, but to your whole clan, ancestors and descendants alike; and your clan and its property in turn belong, even more absolutely, to the state. That being so, I should be reluctant to tolerate someone worming himself into your good graces when you are smitten with illness or old age, and wheedling you into making a will that is not for the best. I shall legislate with a view to nothing except the interest of your clan and the entire state, relegating (as is only right) that of the individual to second place. So as you go on your journey, which is the way of all flesh, show restraint and goodwill towards us: we will look after your affairs for the future and guard your interests with the utmost care, down to the [c] smallest detail.’

Let that stand by way of preamble and consolation for both the living and the dying, Clinias. Here’s the actual law:

Anyone who settles his property by writing a will should first, if he has had children, write down the name of that son who in his opinion deserves to be his heir, and he should also record precisely which, if any, of his other children he offers for adoption by someone else. If, however, he is still [d] left with one of his sons not adopted into an estate, who will presumably be dispatched by law to a colony,
¹⁰
the father should be permitted to present him with as much of his property as he likes, apart from the family estate and all its associated equipment; and if there is more than one son in that position, his father is to distribute his property among them—excluding the estate—in whatever proportion he pleases. But he should not distribute any part of his property to any son who has a home. He should treat a daughter analogously: if she is promised in marriage, he should not let [e] her share his goods, but only if she is not promised. If subsequent to the will one of the sons or daughters is discovered to have come into possession of an estate in Magnesia, he or she should abandon his or her legacy to the testator’s heir. If the testator is leaving no male offspring but only female, he should select whichever of his daughters he pleases and in his will provide someone to be a husband for her and a son for himself, and record this person as his heir. And here’s another disaster a man should allow for when drawing up his will: if his son (his own or adopted) dies in infancy before he can reach man’s estate, the will should specify in writing a child who is to take his place—and who, one hopes, will have
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better luck. When a man who has no children at all writes a will, he may reserve one tenth of his acquired property and give it to anyone he wishes; all the rest he should leave to his adopted heir, so that in making him his son with the blessing of the law he gains his goodwill by treating him fairly. When a man’s children need guardians, and the deceased has made a will and stated in writing the number of guardians he wants his children to have and who they should be (provided they are ready and willing to undertake the office), the choice of guardians put on record in this way [b] should be binding. But if a man dies absolutely intestate or without selecting guardians, then the two nearest relatives on the father’s side and the two nearest on the mother’s, together with one of the deceased’s friends, must be authorized to act as guardians; and the Guardians of the Laws should appoint them for any orphan who stands in such need. Everything to do with guardianship and orphans should be the concern of the fifteen eldest Guardians of the Laws, who should divide themselves by seniority [c] into groups of three, one group to act one year and another the next, until the five terms of office have been completed in rotation; and so far as possible there should be no gaps in the sequence.

When a man dies absolutely intestate and leaves children in need of guardians, these same laws must be brought into operation to relieve their distress. But if he meets with some unforeseen accident and leaves just daughters, he must forgive the lawgiver if he arranges the giving of them [d] in marriage with an eye on only two out of three possible considerations: close kinship, and the security of the estate. The third point, which a father would have taken into account—namely to select from among the entire citizen body someone whose character and habits qualify him to be his own son and his daughter’s bridegroom—these considerations, I say, will have to be passed over, because it’s impracticable to weigh them. So here’s [e] how the best law we can manage in such a field should run. If a man fails to make a will, and leaves only daughters, then on his death (a) a brother on his father’s side (or, if without an estate of his own, a brother on his mother’s side) should take the daughter and the estate of the deceased. (b) If there is a brother’s son available, but no brother, then if the parties are of a similar age the same procedure is to apply. In the absence of all these, (c) a sister’s son is to benefit under the same regulations. (d) Next in line is to be the brother of the deceased’s father, next (e) that brother’s son, and finally (f) the son of the sister of the deceased’s father. And in all cases where a man leaves only female offspring, the succession is to
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pass through the family according to the same rules of kinship, through brothers and brothers’ and sisters’ sons, the males in any one generation always taking precedence over the females. As for age, the assessor must determine the propriety or otherwise of the marriage by inspection, viewing the males naked and the females stripped down to the navel. If the family suffers from such a dearth of relatives that not even a grandson either of the deceased’s brother or of the son of the deceased’s grandfather exists, then in consultation with her guardians the girl may single out of her own free choice any other citizen, provided he does not object, who [b] should then become the deceased’s heir and the daughter’s bridegroom. However, ‘flexibility above all’: sometimes suitable candidates from within the state itself may be in unusually short supply, so if a girl is hard put to it to find a husband among her compatriots, and has in view someone who has been dispatched to a colony whom she would like to inherit her father’s property, then if the man is related to her, he should enter into the estate under the provisions of the law; if he is not of her clan, then provided there are no near kin living in the state, he shall be entitled by [c] virtue of the choice of the daughter of the deceased and that of her guardians to marry her and return to his homeland to take over the establishment of the intestate father.

When a man dies intestate and leaves neither male nor female issue, the situation should in general be met by the foregoing law, and a man and a woman from the clan should ‘go in harness’ and enter into the deserted establishment with full title to the estate. The order of precedence [d] on the female side is to be: (a) the deceased’s sister, (b) his brother’s daughter, (c) the sister’s son, (d) the sister of the deceased’s father, (e) the daughter of the father’s brother, and (f) the daughter of the father’s sister. A woman from this list should set up home with a man from the other list according to the degrees of kinship and the demands of religion
¹¹
for which we made provision earlier.

But let’s not forget the severity of such laws. It can sometimes be hard for a near relative of the deceased to be instructed to marry his kinswoman, by a law that to all appearances takes no account of the thousands of social [e] difficulties that deter people from obeying such instructions in a willing spirit, so that they invariably prefer to put up with anything rather than comply—I mean difficulties like physical or mental illnesses or defects in the man or woman one is told to marry. I dare say some people imagine the lawgiver is not bothered about these things at all, but they’re wrong. So in the interests of the lawgiver and those for whom he legislates, let’s compose a sort of impartial preamble begging those who are subject to the legislator’s orders to forgive him if in his concern for the common good he finds it hardly possible to cope with the personal inconvenience
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experienced by individuals; and the people for whom the lawgiver’s regulations are intended should also be forgiven for their occasional understandable inability to carry out the orders which, in all ignorance, he gives them.

C
LINIAS
: Well then, sir, what would be the most reasonable way of dealing with such cases?

A
THENIAN
: It is essential, Clinias, to choose people to arbitrate between laws of that sort and the persons affected by their provisions.

C
LINIAS
: How do you mean?

A
THENIAN
: Sometimes a nephew with a wealthy father might be reluctant to take his uncle’s daughter because he fancies his chances and is bent on [b] making a better marriage; in another case a man would have no choice but to disobey the law because the instructions devised by the lawgiver would lead to untold trouble—as for instance if they tried to compel him to marry someone suffering from lunacy or some other terrible physical or mental defect that would make the life of the partner not worth living. This policy should be embodied in a law with the following provisions: If in practice people attack the established laws about wills on any point [c] whatever, but especially where a marriage is concerned, and swear that if the legislator were alive and present in person he would never have forced them to either of the courses to which they are in fact being forced (to marry this man or that woman), but one of the relatives or a guardian takes the opposite line, then we must remember that the fifteen Guardians of the Laws have been bequeathed to orphan boys and girls by the legislator to act as their fathers and arbitrate on their behalf; so litigants on any of these matters must go to them to get disputes settled, and carry out their [d] decisions as binding. But if a litigant believes that this is too great an authority to be vested in the Guardians of the Laws, he should take them before the court of the Select Judges and get a decision on the points at issue.

75. If he loses the day,
the lawgiver
should visit him with censure and disgrace, a punishment which any sensible person will regard as more severe than a huge fine.

The effect of this will be to give our orphan children a sort of second birth. [e] We have already described the training and education they should all receive after their first; after this second and parentless birth we have to see that these children who have had the ill luck to be bereaved and made orphans are to be pitied as little as possible for their misfortune. In the first place, the Guardians of the Laws—substitute parents at least as good as the original ones—should lay down rules for them; in particular, we instruct the three Guardians on duty for the year to look after them as though they were their own children; and for the guidance of these officials and the guardians we shall compose a suitable preamble on the education
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of orphans. And luckily enough, I fancy, we have described already how after death the souls of the departed enjoy certain powers which they use to take an interest in human affairs.
¹²
The stories which tell of these things are true, but long, so one should trust to the ancient and widely disseminated common traditions on the point, and also take the legislator’s word for it that the doctrine is true—unless, of course, one believes them to be arrant fools. Now if this is really the way of things, a guardian should [b] fear, in the first place, the gods above, who are aware how deprived orphans are, and secondly the souls of the departed, whose natural instinct is to watch with particular care over their own children, showing benevolence to people who respect them and hostility to those who treat them badly. And he should also fear the reactions of those who, full of years and honor, are still living, because in a state which thrives under good [c] laws their grandchildren will show them glad and tender affection, and old men have sharp eyes and ears for such things: if you do the right thing by an orphan, they’ll be kind to you, whereas they’ll soon show you their displeasure if you take advantage of an orphan’s exposed position, because they regard orphans as a supreme and sacred trust. A guardian or official with even the slightest sense has a duty to give close attention to all these warnings, and take great care over the training and education of orphans, helping them in every possible way, just as if he were contributing to the good of his own self and family.