Look into Sparta inheritance laws. Most land was owned by rich widows. Those also dominated political life. Kings had to borrow money from them! Sparta was bas

Look into Sparta inheritance laws. Most land was owned by rich widows. Those also dominated political life. Kings had to borrow money from them! Sparta was basically matriarchal society with very low fertility. At time of Alexander the Great, they could only field 1000 soldiers. He did not even bothered to conquer them. Compare it to US. How many soldiers could they put on field? UK can realistically deploy only 10k soldiers.