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The encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of

men with one another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also

Spartan; in Sparta too a nearer approach was made than in any

other Greek State to equality of the sexes, and to community of

property; and while there was probably less of licentiousness in

the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded more

lightly than in the rest of Greece. The 'suprema lex' was the

preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The

coarse strength of a military government was not favourable to

purity and refinement; and the excessive strictness of some

regulations seems to have produced a reaction.