The function of the Lycurgan reforms was to ensure the continuation of the pure Spartan bloodline and to maintain their physical superiority. In order to accomplish this, Spartan attitudes towards many of the functions of marriage, as displayed in the rest of Greece, were very different. Plutarch observes that Lycurgas compares the breeding of strong and able children to the breeding of horses and dogs and that ‘they [the rest of Greece] forget that where children are born of poor stock, the first to suffer from their poor condition are those who possess and rear them, while the same applies conversely to the good qualities of those from sound stock.’ In order to accomplish this, Xenophon notes; ‘Lycurgas

This passage also deals with the Spartan attitude to land ownership and is reflected in the Lycurgan ideal on the accumulation of material wealth in general. In other parts of Greece, most notably Athens, ownership of land was vital in being considered a citizen and wealth and influence was often determined by how much land and individual possessed. As a result, marriages in Athens frequently resembled business transactions to secure more land. Lycurgas had noted such behaviour and saw it as potentially disruptive to the singleness of mind which was required for Sparta to remain strong . In order to overcome this preoccupation with accumulation of land and wealth, Lycurgas pooled all the land and divided it equally amongst the Spartiate. According to Plutarch a male child was allotted one of these equal lots of land at birth.

‘He thought childbearing was their most important function, he decreed that the female sex ought to take bodily exercise no less than the male. He established competitions of running and of strength for women with one another, just as he did for the men, because he though that stronger offspring would be born if both parents were strong.’

Plutarch claims that Lycurgas ‘considered children to belong not privately to their fathers, but jointly to the city’ A child was not so much the child of its biological parents, but their contribution to the continuation of the system which w

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Greece Plutarch, According Plutarch, , Spartans Greek, rest greece, legitimate citizens, strong children, produce child, lycurgan ideal, spartan women, lycurgan reforms, lots land,