A Critique of Plato’s “Second Wave”: The Rise of Disunity in the State This paper seeks to critique Plato’s “Second Wave” or “the community of wives and children”. I will argue that Plato’s“second wave” or the “community of wives and children” which he perceived as a tool to promote unity in the state is not useful in achieving its goal. In Book V of Plato’s “The Republic”, Socrates introduced the “Three Waves” and as discussed in class, these three waves pertained to the three reforms to the state necessary to transform it on what is or what it ought to be. The “three waves” of Socrates are the equality of women, community of wives and children and the emergence of the philosopher-king (Jowett, 2000). One of the three waves that Socrates proposed is the community of wives and children or the abolition of the family. As discussed in class, Socrates pushed for the abolition of the family because the family, according to him is the source of disunity in the society thus, the community of wives and children is a way of achieving the greatest good in the state. In his “community of wives and children”, Socrates laid down stipulations. One of these,according to Socrates (translated by Jowett, 2000), is thatthe fittest guardians aged twenty five to fifty five will only have their carnal knowledge with the fittest women of the same class aged twenty to forty, during festivals and all the children produced will be separated from their biological parents. Second, the children will