Women and the family, Plato, "The Republic"

from translator of "The Republic":

"If men and women are to lead the same lives, the family must be abolished. But the sex instinct has to be satisfied and controlled, and new citizens produced. Plato therefore substitutes for the family a system of eugenic breeding analogous to that used in breeding domestic animals"

Part Six:

"Well then, we're through one wave without drowning. We've dealt with the position of women, and shown that our men and women Guardians should both follow the same occupations, and we've proved without inconsistency that our proposals are both practical and advantageous."

"It follows from what we've said, and from our whole previous argument, that our men and women Guardians should be forbidden by law to live together in separate households, and that wives should be held in common by all; similarly, children should be held in common, and no parents should know his child, or child his parent."

"I suppose, that if our Rules and their Auxiliaries are each to be worthy of their name, the Auxiliaries must be willing to obey orders, and the Rulers to issue them, either in direct obedience to the laws, or in obedience to their spirit when we have left them discretion."

"As law-giver, you have already picked your men Guardians. You must now pick women of as nearly similar natural capacities as possible to go with them. They will live and feed together, and have no private room or property, and in the course of their common life and all through their training they are bound to meet constantly for exercise, and so naturally and necessarily be led to mate with each other."

"A necessity of instinct rather than logic"

"Much more, it would be a sin either for mating or for anything else in our ideal society to take place without regulation. The Rulers would not allow it."

"It follows that we must arrange for marriage, and make it as sacred an affair as we can. And a sacred marriage is one that produces the best results."


from here, we see the origin root of eugenicism