the milk of the foster mother, imbibe morals other than those of their parents? If married people do not permit their gardens to be sown with foreign seed, why do they allow their human plants to be irrigated with foreign water? If the father has communicated his nature to the offspring, why should the mother deny to it her nature?[1] Why admit a third person to perform that? God, moreover, has united only two persons, as sufficient for producing offspring, and why should we not acquiesce in His will? If this custom can be admitted at all, it can only be in two special cases. First, should the mother of the infant be laboring under some contagious disease, in order to preserve the sound health of the infant and to prevent its contracting any taint of the contagion, it may be entrusted to another nurse. Second, if the mother be of such corrupt morals as to occasion obstruction to the virtue of the infant, providing a nurse of upright morals and piety can be found, I should not deny that in order to secure the graceful endowments of the mind, the infant may be entrusted to her. Inasmuch, however, as in these times even honorable, noble, and pious matrons deliver their recently born offspring to worthless, disreputable, and impious women, sometimes in a much more feeble state of health than themselves, such practice can admit of no excuse; for their beloved offspring becomes thus exposed to certain contagion of both body and mind. Assuredly under such circumstances, parents have no reason to wonder that their children become altogether dissimilar to themselves in morals and the affairs of life, and that they walk not in their steps, since according to a proverb common among the Romans, “Wickedness is imbibed with the milk.”
9. Thirdly, as delicate mothers of this kind are afraid,
- ↑ Marcus Aurelius maintained that he inherited modesty from his father and feelings of piety from his mother.
