26 Paıdeía
to be weak: he had left his mother’s care and had been removed from his fa-
ther’s authority when he was seven; and although he was expected to take a
spouse well before he reached the age of forty-five and was subjected to civic
disabilities and to rituals of harassment and humiliation if he failed to do so
in a timely fashion, he would not as a husband then live with his wife. During
the initial period of their marriage, shame and dread governed the comport-
ment of the couple. The néos visited his bride’s bedroom in secret at night, and
all their relations were conducted under the cover of darkness. The Spartan
might beget a child. But at least until he had himself joined the presbúteroı, he
would not live within his own household; and even then, his sons would de-
part from that household at a tender age.^62
There seems to have been a shortage of Spartiate women, perhaps as a
consequence of female infanticide. In keeping with this presumption, Xeno-
phon reports that the law sanctioned a husband’s permitting a friend and fel-
low citizen to engender legitimate offspring with his lawful, wedded wife. In-
deed, if the man was elderly and his bride was young, he was not just allowed,
he was expected, to be generous in this fashion. It is in this context that we
should consider Polybius’ report that it was in accord with ancestral practice
at Lacedaemon for brothers to share a spouse. As Plutarch remarked, the in-
stitution of marriage existed at Sparta solely for the procreation of children,
and the practices associated with it presupposed on the part of the husband “a
strong and unadulterated lack of passion [apatheía] with respect to his wife.”
It is easy to see why Josephus described the Spartan regime as unsociable and
accused the Lacedaemonians of slighting matrimony.^63
The tendency evident in these arrangements was exacerbated by the
Spartan practice of pederasty. In Lacedaemon, the boys apt to be desired were
neither shy nor coy. In fact, when a boy reached the age of twelve, he assumed
the role of a beloved [erō ́menos], and he aggressively sought out from among
the néoı and eagerly took as his lover a figure whom the Greeks called an
erastē ́s and the Spartans dubbed an eıspnē ́las or “breather-in.” From this day
on, the man with whom he made this connection was to be far more than just
his sexual partner. He was to be the boy’s patron, his protector, and friend.^64
At Lacedaemon, this particular species of homoerotic relations was not
simply a practice sanctioned by custom. As among some tribes in Australia
and Melanesia, it was a political institution. It was not only the case that a boy
lacking an eıspnē ́las was an object of disdain: a young man of distinguished
background could, in fact, be severely punished by the magistrates for refus-