Population Control
There have been several inquiries concerning population control. Some have wanted to limit who may partner with whom. Still, others want to dictate further who may obtain education. The point of all this, is to maintain a firm grip on potential troublemakers. The thinking is this, if intelligent people partner with dumb people, their offspring will be dumb, and follow your instructions blindly. If intelligent people partner with intelligent people, their offspring will be able to think for themselves, and will quickly recognize that they do not want you as their ruler, and will plot to over throw your empire. This is just bunk.
Completely daft parents are fully capable of having absolutely brilliant children. Highly intelligent parents can have utterly brain dead children. Let the people partner with whom they will. There is no point in wasted your efforts with such a fickle endeavor. Besides, secret engagements will always happen.
So how can we control the populace? Simple, we watch them. We listen to them. We monitor them in every way conceivable. Television sets will have embedded cameras and microphones which continually feed data. Telephones are automatically bugged. All electronic equipment will have similar bugging. We will offer free upgrades to new equipment, and when enough have been put into circulation, we begin to act. Make a few dramatic arrests. Have some of them end in a fire fight. Fear will control the populace.
Because of fear, conspirators will not meet together. Messages will not be sent. No one will know when it is safe to talk about forbidden things, and so they will not speak of them. If would be conspirators cannot communicate, they will have a hard time organizing any sort of rebellion against you. The simplest and most effective form of control. Fear!
This is just a start. Use your imagination. What other forms of control can we have in our arsenal? Remember, we want the populace to THINK they have freedoms. We do not want them to think that they are being controlled, at least, not directly.