m, non vitae Comitem, sed litis fomitem
domi habebit_, instead of a fair wife shall have a fury, for a fit
son-in-law a mere fiend, &c. examples are too frequent.

Another main caution fit to be observed is this, that though they be equal
in years, birth, fortunes, and other conditions, yet they do not omit
virtue and good education, which Musonius and Antipater so much inculcate
in Stobeus:

[6262] "Dos est magna parentum
Virtus, et metuens alterius viri
Certo foedere castitas."

If, as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat _modium salis_, a bushel of salt
with him, before he choose his friend, what care should be had in choosing
a wife, his second self, how solicitous should he be to know her qualities
and behaviour; and when he is assured of them, not to prefer birth,
fortune, beauty, before bringing up, and good conditions. [6263]Coquage god
of cuckolds, as one merrily said, accompanies the goddess Jealousy, both
follow the fairest, by Jupiter's appointment, and they sacrifice to them
together: beauty and honesty seldom agree; straight personages have often
crooked manners; fair faces, foul vices; good complexions, ill conditions.
_Suspicionis plena res est, et insidiarum_, beauty (saith [6264]Chrysostom)
is full of treachery and suspicion: he that hath a fair wife, cannot have a
worse mischief, and yet most covet it, as if nothing else in marriage but
that and wealth were to be respected. [6265]Francis Sforza, Duke of Milan,
was so curious in this behalf, that he would not marry the Duke of Mantua's
daughter, except he might see her naked first: which Lycurgus appointed in
his laws, and Morus in his Utopian Commonwealth approves. [6266]In Italy,
as a traveller observes, if a man have three or four daughters, or more,
and they prove fair, they are married eftsoons: if deformed, they change
their lovely names of Lucia, Cynthia, Camaena, call them Dorothy, Ursula,
Bridget, and so put them into monasteries, as if none were fit for
marriage, but such as are eminently fair: but these are erroneous tenets: a
modest virgin well conditioned, to such a fair snout-piece, is much to be
preferred. If thou wilt avoid them, take away all causes of suspicion and
jealousy, marry a coarse piece, fetch her from Cassandra's [6267]temple,
which was wont in Italy to be a sanctuary of all deformed maids, and so
shalt thou be sure that no man will make thee cuckold, but for spite. A
citizen of Bizance in France had a filthy, d