And in the case of the Locrians this is especially likely to have happened. For as they had removed to a great distance from those acquainted with their past and had lapse of time on their side, they would not have been so foolish as to behave in a manner likely to revive the memory of their defects, but would have conducted themselves as to cover these defects.
They, therefore, naturally named their city after the women and pretended to be related to other Locrians on the female side, renewing also those ancestral friendships and alliances which were derived from women.
For this reason too the fact that the Athenians ravaged their country is no proof that Aristotle's statements are not correct.
For, as it was to be expected from what I have said, that even had they been slaves ten times over these men who set sail from Locri and landed in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a> would have affected to be friends of the Lacedaemonians, it was only to be expected also that the Athenians would be hostile to the whole pack of these Locrians, not so much from consideration of their ancestry as in view of their sympathies.
How again, I ask, could the Spartans who had once sent home those in the prime of life to beget children have refused permission to the Locrians to do the same thing"
Not only the probabilities, however, in each case but the facts differ considerably.
For neither were the Spartans likely to prevent the Locrians from acting as they had acted themselves — this would have been strange indeed — nor were the Locrians likely at the bidding of the Spartans to act in precisely the same manner as the latter had acted.
For among the Lacedaemonians it was a hereditary cut and quite usual for three or four men to have one wife or even more if they were brothers, the offspring being the common property of all, and when a man had begotten enough children, it was honourable and quite usual for him to give his wife to one of his friends.
Therefore the Locrians, who were not subject to the same curse as the Spartans, nor bound by an oath such as the Spartans had taken that they would not return home before storming Messene, did not, as readily as can be explained, imitate the Spartans in a general dispatch of men to their wives,
but returning home singly and at rare intervals allowed their wives to become more familiar with their slaves than with their original husbands, and allowed their maidens still greater latitude, which was the cause of emigration.
Walbank Commentary