Politics: A Treatise on Government

Since then every family is part of a city, and each of those individuals is part of a family, and the virtue of the parts ought to correspond to the virtue of the whole; it is necessary, that both the wives and children of the community should be instructed correspondent to the nature thereof, if it is of consequence to the virtue of the state, that the wives and children therein should be virtuous, and of consequence it certainly is, for the wives are one half of the free persons; and of the children the succeeding citizens are to be

The state is "a community of well-being in families and aggregations of families for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life."

is the legislator's task to frame a society which shall make the good life possible.