title: Aflame: Ancient Wisdom on Marriage
author: Torode
description: Sam and Bethany Torode are freelance writers and graphic designers who live in rural Wisconsin with their two sons. Their essays have appeared in Christianity Today, Books &amp; Culture, Boundless webzine, The American Enterprise, and Touchstone.
zlib_text:  
  Hierocles exalts wedlock v. 12.11, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 17 December 2017 
  Page 1 of 6 
  Hierocles exalts wedlock 
  
  DOWN TO EARTH SERIES 
  HIEROCLES EXALTS WEDLOCK 
  Hierocles exalts wedlock v. 12.11, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 17 December 2017 
  Page 2 of 6 
   
   
   
   
   
  From the “Ethical Fragments of Hierocles,” etc.,
  1 in: Political fragments of Archytas, Charondas, 
  Zaleucus, and other Ancient Pythagoreans, preserved by Strobæus. Translated from the Greek by 
  Thomas Taylor, 1822; pp. 95-105. 
  HE DISCUSSION OF WEDLOCK IS A THING MOST NECESSARY. For the whole 
  of our race is naturally adapted to society. But the first and most elementary 
  of all associations is that which is effected by marriage. For cities could not 
  exist without a household; but the household of an unmarried man is truly imper-
  fect; while, on the contrary, of him who is married, it is perfect and full. Hence we 
  have shown in our treatise On Families, that a life accompanied by wedlock is to be 
  precedaneously chos