Athenian
Ath. Whoever proposes to publish laws for States, regulating the conduct of the citizens in State affairs and public matters, and deems that there is no need to make laws for their private conduct, even in necessary matters, but that everyone should be allowed to spend his day just as he pleases, instead of its being compulsory for everything, public and private, to be done by a regular rule, and supposes that, if he leaves private conduct unregulated by law, the citizens will still consent to regulate their public and civil life by law—this man is wrong in his proposal. For what reason have I said this? For this reason,—because we shall assert that the married people must take their meals at the public messes neither more nor less than they did during the time preceding marriage. When the customs of the public mess first arose in your countries—probably dictated by a war or by some event of equal potency, when you were short of men and in dire straits,—it seemed an astonishing institution; but after you had had experience of these public messes and had been obliged to adopt them, the custom seemed to contribute admirably towards security; and in some such way as that the public mess came to be one of your established institutions.Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1272a 2 ff.