Miscellanies 2.23.138

That is why Abraham, making the excuse that his wife was his sister, says: “She is my sister from my father, but not from my mother, and she became my wife,” teaching that sisters by the same mother must not be taken in marriage. Let us go briefly through the record of opinions. Plato places marriage among external goods, providing for the immortality of our race and, as it were, a kind of continuance handed on like a torch to children's children. Democritus refuses marriage and the begetting of children because of the many annoyances they bring and the distraction from more necessary things. Epicurus agrees with him, and all who place the good in pleasure and freedom from disturbance, and also in freedom from pain. Again, according to the Stoics marriage and the rearing of children are indifferent; according to the Peripatetics, good. In short, these, having carried their doctrines only as far as the tongue, were enslaved to pleasures, some using concubines, others courtesans, most of them boys. And that wise foursome in the Garden, with the courtesan, glorified pleasure in deeds.