על המידות הטובות ד׳On the Virtues 4
א׳
1[18] So earnestly and carefully does the law desire to train and exercise the soul to manly courage that it lays down rules even about the kind of garment which should be worn. It strictly forbids a man to assume a woman’s garb, in order that no trace, no merest shadow of the female, should attach to him to spoil his masculinity. For as it always follows nature, its will is to lay down rules suitable and consistent with each other, even down to the very smallest matters, whose commonplace nature seems to set them in the background.
ב׳
2[19] For since it saw as clearly, as if they were outlines on a flat surface, how unlike the bodily shapes of man and woman are, and that each of the two has a different life assigned to it, to the one a domestic, to the other a civic life, it judged it well in other matters too to prescribe rules all of which though not directly made by nature were the outcome of wise reflection and in accordance with nature. These were such as dealt with habits of life and dress and any similar matters.
ג׳
3[20] It considered that in such matters the true man should maintain his masculinity, particularly in his clothes, which as he always wears them by day and night ought to have nothing to suggest unmanliness.
ד׳
4[21] In the same way he trained the woman to decency of adornment and forbade her to assume the dress of a man, with the further object of guarding against the mannish-woman as much as the womanish-man. He knew that as in buildings, if one of the foundation stones is removed, the rest will not remain as they were.