CHAP. V.
In what manner the Laws establish Equality in a Democracy.
Book V.
Chap. 5.SOME ancient legislators, as Lycurgus and Romulus, made an equal division of lands. A settlement of this kind can never take place but upon the foundation of a new republic; or when the old one is so corrupt, and the minds of the people so disposed, that the poor think themselves obliged to demand, and the rich obliged to consent to, a remedy of this nature.
If the legislator, in making a division of this kind, does not enact laws at the same time to support it, he forms only a temporary constitution; inequality will break in where the laws have not precluded it, and the republic will be utterly undone.
Hence for the preservation of this equality it is absolutely necessary there should be some regulation in respect to women's dowries, donations, successions, testamentary settlements, and all other forms of contracting. For were it once allowed to dispose of our property to whom and how we pleased, the will of each individual would disturb the order of the fundamental law.
Solon, by permitting the Athenians upon failure of issue[1] to leave their estates to whom they pleased, acted contrary to the ancient laws by which the estates were ordered to continue in the family of the testator[2]; and even contrary to his own laws, for by abolishing debts he had aimed at equality.
