1In every house, naked and dirty, they grow into these limbs, into these bodies, which we admire. 1Each mother nurses her own child at the breast, and they are not handed over to maids and nurses. 2You could not tell master from slave by any refinements of upbringing: they live among the same cattle, on the same ground, until age sets the freeborn apart and valour acknowledges them. 3The young men come late to love, and so their manhood is unexhausted. 3Nor are the girls hurried; 3they have the same youthfulness, a similar stature: well matched and strong they are united, and the children reproduce the vigour of their parents.
4Sisters' sons are held in the same honour by their uncle as by their father. 4Some consider this tie of blood more sacred and closer, and in taking hostages they prefer to demand such hostages, as though they held the mind more firmly and the family more widely. 5Yet each man's heirs and successors are his own children, and there is no will. 5If there are no children, the nearest degree in possession is brothers, paternal uncles, maternal uncles. 5The more relatives a man has, the greater the number of his kin by marriage, the more esteemed is his old age; 5nor is there any reward for childlessness.