ny woman.

_For either they be full of jealousy,
Or masterfull, or loven novelty_.

Good men have often ill wives, as bad as Xanthippe was to Socrates, Elevora
to St. Lewis, Isabella to our Edward the Second; and good wives are as
often matched to ill husbands, as Mariamne to Herod, Serena to Diocletian,
Theodora to Theophilus, and Thyra to Gurmunde. But I will say nothing of
dissolute and bad husbands, of bachelors and their vices; their good
qualities are a fitter subject for a just volume, too well known already in
every village, town and city, they need no blazon; and lest I should mar
any matches, or dishearten loving maids, for this present I will let them
pass.

Being that men and women are so irreligious, depraved by nature, so
wandering in their affections, so brutish, so subject to disagreement, so
unobservant of marriage rites, what shall I say? If thou beest such a one,
or thou light on such a wife, what concord can there be, what hope of
agreement? 'tis not _conjugium_ but _conjurgium_, as the Reed and Fern in
the [5783]Emblem, averse and opposite in nature: 'tis twenty to one thou
wilt not marry to thy contentment: but as in a lottery forty blanks were
drawn commonly for one prize, out of a multitude you shall hardly choose a
good one: a small ease hence then, little comfort,

[5784] "Nec integrum unquam transiges laetus diem."

"If he or she be such a one,
Thou hadst much better be alone."

If she be barren, she is not--&c. If she have [5785]children, and thy state
be not good, though thou be wary and circumspect, thy charge will undo
thee,--_foecunda domum tibi prole gravabit_, [5786]thou wilt not be able to
bring them up, [5787]"and what greater misery can there be than to beget
children, to whom thou canst leave no other inheritance but hunger and
thirst?" [5788]_cum fames dominatur, strident voces rogantium panem,
penetrantes patris cor_: what so grievous as to turn them up to the wide
world, to shift for themselves? No plague like to want: and when thou hast
good means, and art very careful of their education, they will not be
ruled. Think but of that old proverb, [Greek: haeiroon tekna paemata],
_heroum filii noxae_, great men's sons seldom do well; _O utinam aut
coelebs mansissem, aut prole carerem!_ "would that I had either remained
single, or not had children," [5789]Augustus exclaims in Suetonius. Jacob
had his Reuben, Simeon and Levi; David an Amnon, an Absal