He would have men in the first place seek justice from their friends and neighbours, because, as he truly remarks, they know best the questions at issue; these are called in another passage arbiters rather than judges.  But if they cannot settle the matter, it is to be referred to the courts of the tribes, and a higher penalty is to be paid by the party who is unsuccessful in the suit.  There is a further appeal allowed to the select judges, with a further increase of penalty.  The select judges are to be appointed by the magistrates, who are to choose one from every magistracy.  They are to be elected annually, and therefore probably for a year only, and are liable to be called to account before the guardians of the law.  In cases of which death is the penalty, the trial takes place before a special court, which is composed of the guardians of the law and of the judges of appeal.

In treating of the subject in Book ix, he proposes to leave for the most part the methods of procedure to a younger generation of legislators; the procedure in capital causes he determines himself.  He insists that the vote of the judges shall be given openly, and before they vote they are to hear speeches from the plaintiff and defendant.  They are then to take evidence in support of what has been said, and to examine witnesses.  The eldest judge is to ask his questions first, and then the second, and then the third.  The interrogatories are to continue for three days, and the evidence is to be written down.  Apparently he does not expect the judges to be professional lawyers, any more than he expects the members of the council to be trained statesmen.

In forming marriage connexions, Plato supposes that the public interest will prevail over private inclination.  There was nothing in this very shocking to the notions of Greeks, among whom the feeling of love towards the other sex was almost deprived of sentiment or romance.  Married life is to be regulated solely with a view to the good of the state.  The newly-married couple are not allowed to absent themselves from their respective syssitia, even during their honeymoon; they are to give their whole mind to the procreation of children; their duties to one another at a later period of life are not a matter about which the state is equally solicitous.  Divorces are readily allowed for incompatibility of temper.  As in the Republic, physical considerations seem almost to exclude moral and social ones.  To modern feelings there is a degree of coarseness in Plato’s treatment of the subject.  Yet he also makes some shrewd remarks on marriage, as for example, that a man who does not marry for money will not be the humble servant of his wife.  And he shows a true conception of the nature of the family, when he requires that the newly-married couple ‘should leave their father and mother,’ and have a separate home.  He also provides against extravagance in marriage festivals, which in some states of society, for instance in the case of the Hindoos, has been a social evil of the first magnitude.