The Guardians will live together as a single family unit. In the case of this class ( only this class), the old concept of private homes and family life is to be changed. 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.

And their education in the arts and in gymnastic is not to be separate but equal: They are to be trained together with the men. Women are to be considered as candidates both as potential rulers and auxiliaries. This is true of the women as well as the men, so women should be nurtured and educated the same as men if they are to assume their place as Guardians. Socrates' answer is that, although we agree that women are in the main physically weaker than men, we agreed earlier, in establishing the three classes, that every citizen should be relegated to the job that best suited him. The question now is, what effect does this have on families and the concept of family in the ideal state? What is to be the status of women and children in the class of Guardians? Earlier in the dialogue, it was determined that, as a part of the social contract, the Guardians were to own everything in common.

As Socrates is about to develop his examples of injustice, Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupt and ask for a further description of the lives of the Guardians. Justice is, as an ideal, singular, but examples of injustice abound. Socrates now proposes to argue several examples of injustice in order further to elucidate the concept of justice.

The republic book 5