he is put out and sad it makes him look gay and
smiling from ear to ear, the mirror is plainly faulty. So the wife is
faulty and devoid of tact, who frowns when her husband is in the vein
for mirth and jollity, and who jokes and laughs when he is serious: the
former conduct is disagreeable, the latter contemptuous.[160] And, just
as geometricians say lines and surfaces do not move of themselves, but
only in connection with bodies, so the wife ought to have no private
emotions of her own, but share in her husband's gravity or mirth,
anxiety or gaiety.

Sec. XV. As those husbands who do not like to see their wives eating and
drinking in their company only teach them to take their food on the sly,
so those husbands who are not gay and jolly with their wives, and never
joke or smile with them, only teach them to seek their pleasures out of
their company.

Sec. XVI. The kings of Persia have their wedded wives at their side at
banquets and entertainments; but when they have a mind for a drunken
debauch they send them away,[161] and call for singing-girls and
concubines, rightly so doing, for so they do not mix up their wives with
licentiousness and drunkenness. Similarly, if a private individual,
lustful and dissolute, goes astray with a courtesan or maid-servant, the
wife should not be vexed or impatient, but consider that it is out of
respect to her that he bestows upon another all his wanton depravity.

Sec. XVII. As kings make[162] if fond of music many musicians, if lovers of
learning many men of letters, and many athletes if fond of gymnastics,
so the man who has an eye for female charms teaches his wife to dress
well, the man of pleasure teaches his meretricious tricks and
wantonness, while the true gentleman makes his virtuous and decorous.

Sec. XVIII. A Lacedaemonian maiden, when someone asked her if she had yet
had dealings with a man, replied, "No, but he has with me." This
methinks is the line of conduct a matron should pursue, neither to
decline the embraces of a husband when he takes the initiative, nor to
provoke them herself, for the one is forward and savours of the
courtesan, the other is haughty and unnatural.

Sec. XIX. The wife ought not to have her own private friends, but cultivate
only those of the husband. Now the gods are our first and greatest
friends, so the wife ought only to worship and recognize her husband's
gods, and the door ought to be shut on all superfluous worship and
strange super