The union of male and female when too young is bad for the procreation of children; in all other animals the offspring of the young are small and ill developed, and with a tendency to produce female children, and therefore also in man, as is proved by the fact that in those cities in which men and women are accustomed to marry young, the people are small and weak; in childbirth also younger women suffer more, and more of them die; some persons say that this was the meaning of the response once given to the Troezenians the oracle really meant that many died because they married too young; it had nothing to do with the gathering of the harvest.