Sparta was in many regards the opposite pole to Athens from a cultural perspective. Lycurgus' training and rule offered the city a formalized system of mandatory military training, as well as a constitution and social structure which allowed all Spartans some form of equality. Sparta was patriarchal (like Athens) and militaristic (unlike Athens). Lycurgus's precept required military service for nearly a person's entire life, and was excluded to the helots and the perieoki. Only the male spartiate were admitted into Lycurgus' training, where at the age of seven, a male child was taken from their mother, and until the age of 30 and possibly beyond were dedicated to their training and to their service to the state.
When a male child was born in Sparta, they were washed in wine rather than water, to see if it induced a fit which in turn was a mandatory test for the child's strength. From then on, nurses rather than mothers, primarily brought up the child with little coddling, and only simple food. When the child reached the age of seven, they were ready for their education and were organized into age groups or Agelai (relatively meaning flock or flocks of animals). Once introduced into the age groups, they were introduced to communal living with their age group and with others. From then on once assigned the Agelai, the children became subject to the Agoge. The Agoge was what allowed a Spartan child to become a homoioi or equal, which meant they were not reserved to work for the rest of their lives, and could have the political freedoms of a citizen. The training that went on throughout the Agoge was brutal. Always under the control of someone older than themselves, the specific Agelai were subjected to numerous competitive events and staged battles. Regardless, a child's education did include choral dance, reading, and writing, but athleticism and strength was stressed. No small wonder that the Spartans themselves won many of the Olympic events in Athens. After the Agoge, the Agelai, were reintegrated into society slowly, by undertaking the krypteia. The krypteia was partaken of by select individuals rather than by the entire agelai, during it, armed with a small knife, no shelter, clothing, or food, the youths hid during the day, and in the evening as a sort of 'secret police' patrolled the helot land plots in search of potential revolts, and roamed the mountainside. Once the krypteia was complete, the individuals who survived it were given high standing in the army, and potentially became a part of the Three Hundred Knights.
After the krypteia, the men were expected to marry. Marriage was stressed highly in Spartan society, specifically in the proliferation of young healthy children. However, the marriage ceremony for a Spartan man and woman was not highly ritualized. The woman was abducted in the night, her head would be shaved, and she was made to wear men's clothing and lye on a straw pallet in the dark. The groom afterward would return to the barrack of young men, and would have little or no contact with the bride from thereafter, save for purely procreative visits. A Spartan male could have multiple wives, (anthropologically known as polygamy) but lived mostly amongst his mess and barrack mates with little connection to the opposite sex. Until the age of thirty or onward, a Spartan man's life was entirely dedicated to his state and to the army.