Must thou marry a youth again? And yet ducentas ire nuptum post mortes amant: howsoever it is, as Apuleius gives out of his Meroe, congressus annosus, pestilens, abhorrendus, a pestilent match, abominable, and not to be endured. In such case how can they otherwise choose but be jealous, how should they agree one with another? This inequality is not in years only, but in birth, fortunes, conditions, and all good qualities,

Si qua voles apte nubere, nube pari,

’Tis my counsel, saith Anthony Guiverra, to chose such a one. Civis Civem ducat, Nobilis Nobilem, let a citizen match with a citizen, a gentleman with a gentlewoman; he that observes not this precept (saith he) non generum sed malum Genium, non nurum sed Furiam, non vitæ Comitem, sed litis fomitem domi habebit, in stead of a fair wife shall have a fury, for a fit son in law a meer feind, &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 vertue and good education, which Musonius and Antipater so much inculcate in Stobeus;

Dos est magna parentum Virtus, & metuens alterius viri Certo fœdere castitas.

If as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat modium salis, a bushell of salt with him, before he chuse his friend, what care should be had in chusing a wife, his second self, how sollicitous 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.

Coquage god of Cuckolds, as one merrily said, accompanies the goddess jealousie, both follow the fairest, by Jupiters 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. Suspitionis plena res est, & insidiarum, beauty (saith Chrysostome) is full of treachery and suspition: 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.

Francis Sforza Duke of Millain, 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 lawes, and Morus in his Utopian Commonwealth approves. In Italy, as a travellour observes, if a man have three or four daughters, or more, and they prove fair, they are married eftsoones: if deformed, they change their lovely names of Lucia, Cynthia, Camæna, call them Dorothie, Ursula, Briget, and so put them into Monasteries, as if none were fit for marriage, but such as are eminentlie fair: but these are erroneous tenents: a modest virgin well conditioned, to such a fair snout peece, is much to be preferred.

If thou wilt avoid them, take away all causes of suspition and jealousie, marry a course peece, fetch her from Cassandra’s Temple, which was wont in Italy to be a Sanctuary of all deformed maids, and so thou shalt be sure that no man will make thee cuckold, but for spight. A citizen of Bizante in Thrace, had a filthy dowdy, deformed slut to his wife, and finding her in bed with another man, cryed out as one amazed; O miser! quæ te necessitas huc adegit? O thou wretch what necessity brought thee hither? as well he might; for who can affect such a one?

But this is warily to be understood, most offend in another extream, they prefer wealth before beauty, and so she be rich, they care not how she look; but these are all out as faulty as the rest. Attendenda uxoris forma, as Salisburiensis adviseth, ne si alteram aspexeris, mox eam sordere putes, as the Knight in Chaucer that was married to an old woman,

And all day after hid him as an Owl, So woe was his wife looked so foul.

Have a care of thy wifes complexion, lest whilst thou seest another, thou loathest her, she prove jealous, thou naught,

Si tibi deformis conjux, si serva venusta, Ne utaris servâ,——

I can perhaps give instance. Molestum est possidere, quod nemo habere dignetur, a misery to possess that which no man likes: on the other side, Difficile custoditur quod plures amant. And as the bragging souldier vaunted in the Comedy, nimia est miseria pulchrum esse hominem nimis. Scipio did never so hardly besiege Carthage, as these yong gallants will beset thine house, one with wit or person, another with wealth, &c. If she be fair, saith Guazze, she will be suspected howsoever.

Both extreams are naught, Pulchra citò adamatur, fœda facile concupiscit, the one is soon beloved, the other loves; one is hardly kept, because proud and arrogant, the other not worth keeping; what is to be done in this case? Ennius in Menelippe adviseth thee as a friend to take statam formam, si vis habere incolumem pudicitiam, one of a middle size, neither too fair, nor too foul,

Nec formosa magis quam mihi casta placet,

with old Cato, though fit, let her beauty be, neque lectissima, neque illiberalis, between both. This I approve; but of the other two I resolve with Salisburiensis, cæteris paribus, both rich alike, endowed alike, majori miseria deformis habetur quam formosa servatur, I had rather marry a fair one, and put it to the hazard, than be troubled with a blowze; but do thou as thou wilt, I speak only of my self.

Howsoever, quod iterum moneo, I would advise thee thus much, be she fair or foul, to choose a wife out of a good kindred, parentage, well brought up, in an honest place.

Primum animo tibi proponas quo sanguine creta, Quâ formâ, quâ ætate, quibusque ante omnia virgo Moribus, in junctos veniat nova nupta penates.

He that marries a wife out of a suspected Inne or Alehouse, buyes a horse in Smithfield, and hires a servant in Pauls, as the diverbe is, shall likely have a jade to his horse, a knave for his man, an arrant honest woman to his wife. Filia præsumitur esse matri similis, saith Nevisanus? Such a mother, such a daughter; mali corvi malum ovum, Cat to her kind.

Scilicet expectas ut tradat mater honestos Atque alios mores quàm quos habet?——

If the mother be dishonest, in all likelihood the daughter will matrizare, take after her in all good qualities.

Creden’ Pasiphae non tauripotente futuram Tauripetam?

If the dam trot, the foal will not amble. My last caution is, that a woman do not bestow her self upon a fool, or an apparant melancholy person; jealousie is a symptome of that disease, and fools have no moderation. Justina a Romane Lady was much persecuted, and after made away by her jealous husband, she caused and enjoyned this Epitaph, as a caveat to others, to be engraven on her tomb:

Discite ab exemplo Justinæ, discite patres, Ne nubat fatuo filia vestra viro, &c.

Learn parents all, and by Justina’s case, Your children to no dizards for to place.

After marriage, I can give no better admonitions than to use their wives well, and which a friend of mine told me that was a married man, I will tell you as good cheap, saith Nicostratus in Stobeus, to avoid future strife, and for quietness sake, when you are in bed, take heed of your wives flattering speeches over night, and curtain sermons in the morning. Let them do their endeavour likewise to maintain them to their means, which Patricius ingeminates, and let them have liberty with discretion, as time and place requires:

many women turn queans by compulsion, as Nevisanus observes, because their husbands are so hard, and keep them so short in diet and apparell, paupertas cogit eas meretricari, poverty and hunger, want of means, makes them dishonest, or bad usage; their churlish behaviour forceth them to fly out, or bad examples, they do it to cry quittance.

In the other extreme some are too liberal, as the proverb is, Turdus malum sibi cacat, they make a rod for their own tails, as Candaules did to Gyges in Herodotus, commend his wifes beauty himself, and besides would needs have him see her naked. Whilst they give their wives too much liberty to gad abroad, and bountifull allowance, they are accessary to their own miseries; animæ uxorum pessime olent, as Plautus jybes, they have deformed souls, and by their painting and colours procure odium mariti, their husbands hate, especially,

——cum misere viscantur labra mariti.