Socrates' plan, in fact, is that the men and women of the Guardian class, being denied all personal possessions, are to share everything in common. In the case of this class (only this class), the old concept of private homes and family life is to be changed. The Guardians will live together as a single family unit. In order to ensure the highest quality of offspring for this class, the men and women will breed and rear their children in common, according to theories of the eugenic methods employed in breeding domestic animals, such as dogs and horses. Since the Guardians are to share everything in common as members of a new "family," the children will learn to address one another as "brother" and "sister"; they will learn to perceive each older citizen as "father" or "mother," thus ensuring respect and domestic tranquility for this class in the state. Because they belong together as members of a single large family, they should rid themselves of the rivalries and jealousies attendant upon the tradition of erstwhile private "families." This will provide for greater social equality for the members of this class and ought to ensure better unity in the ideal state. But, because wives and children are to be held in common, this does not mean that the adult Guardians are permitted to be sexually promiscuous. Their sexual unions must be conducted under strict surveillance by the rulers.
The method whereby this selective breeding will be conducted, Socrates explains, is that at designated calendar times and at the most appropriate periods of their sexual activity and fertility, the men and women of this class will be brought together in "marriage festivals," but they will not be permitted the free choice of sexual partners. Rather, they will be "taught" that the older rulers have drawn all pairs of sexual partners by blind lot, whereas in fact the rulers will have paired the sexual partners by careful selection so as to ensure the success of the eugenic method the rulers have adopted.
