Plato on eugenics and discouraging of family life

The system used for upbringing Spartan soldiers might have inspired the following account recommended for Plato’s ideal state; that ‘the traditional form of the family should be done away with. Men should have women and children in common, such that no man knows who his children are or has excessive love for one woman in particular. Even mothers are not allowed to know who their children are. Their children are taken from them after birth, and they are given other children to suckle as long as they have milk’ (http://philosophynow.org/issues/90/Platos_Just_State). 
Furthermore, in terms of reproduction, Plato even goes further to seemingly the field of eugenics, when he says ‘the best of either sex should be united with the best as often [as possible], and the inferior with the inferior as seldom as possible’ (ibid), which may remind of Spartan practice of ‘killing weak and deformed infants’ (ibid).

An old manuscript of The Republic by Plato

In Republic, Plato also argues about ‘the policy of ensuring “judicious matings”‘ (http://jme.bmj.com/content/24/4/263.full.pdf). In which, ‘He proposed that marriage for the guardian classes (guardians were the premier class of Athenian citizens, selected by their natural capacities and attainments to govern the state) be abolished and that provision be made for men and women of the same natural capacities to made. He drew an analogy with the selective breeding of sporting dogs and horses in order to obtain the desired stock… Inferior members of the guardian classes should be discouraged from reproducing. Only the best of the offspring should be kept in the guardian class and the inferior children should be relegated to the civilian classes’ (ibid). As for child bearing, he continues that ‘The newborn children were to be taken from their mothers and reared in special nurseries in a separate quarter of the city. Family life was to be discouraged as it provided a distraction from the business of governing, of defending or extending the city state by conquest. Any children born defective would be “hidden away” in some appropriate manner. This may actually a euphemism for instance. However neither infanticide nor exposure as practised in Sparta and other Greek cities was recommended by Plato for his republic’ (ibid).

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/platos-republic-with-its-historical-background/