If idleness joins melancholy, such people are especially prone to jealousy. Nevisanus observes: “An idle woman is presumed to be lustful, and often jealous.” “When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.” And this is not unlikely, for they have no other business to occupy their minds.

The more particular causes are these. First, impotence: when a man cannot perform the duties he owes his wife. Though he may live honestly and harm no one, Trebius the lawyer may still ask “whether he gives each person their due”—whether he gives everyone what belongs to them. When he recognizes his shortcomings and finds her more demanding, clamorous, insatiable and lustful than is proper, he immediately begins to suspect that she will satisfy herself where he falls short, and obtain her pleasure by other means.

Cornelius Gallus has elegantly expressed this state of mind in an epigram to his Lycoris.

And now she seeks other young men and other loves; She calls me a feeble, decrepit old man, and so on.

For this cause is most evident in old men, who are naturally cold and dry and married to women “full of sap”—young, lustful wives. Like old, doting January in Chaucer, they begin to suspect that all is not well.

She was young and he was old, And so he feared being made a cuckold.

And how could it be otherwise? Old age is a disease in itself, loathsome, full of suspicion and fear; even at its best it is incapable and unfit for such matters. “As suited to marriage as winter to harvest”: as welcome to a young woman as snow at harvest, says Nevisanus. “And if you take a young girl, she will give you horns”: marry a vigorous young woman and she will certainly graft horns onto your head.

“All women are unreliable, often unfaithful to their husbands”—as Aeneas Sylvius supports him in letter 38—“but most treacherous to old men.” They would rather “embrace death,” lie with a corpse, than with such a man: “Boys hate him; women despise him.”

On the other hand, many men, says Jerome, are suspicious of their wives if they are sexually unrestrained, but old men most of all. So the woman in Apuleius did not complain without reason about the old, bald, bedridden scoundrel she had for a husband.

“Poor woman that I am, what shall I do? I have a grim old fellow for a husband, as bald as a coot, as small and as incapable as a child”—a bedful of bones—“he keeps every door barred and locked against me. Woe is me! What shall I do?” He was jealous, and she made him a cuckold for keeping her confined. Groundless suspicion and harsh treatment can themselves make a woman stray who would otherwise have remained faithful.

Treatment makes many good women Become bad.

Mistreatment makes matters worse. “For when women realize their husband is paying attention to this, they sin more freely,” as Nevisanus maintains: when a woman thinks her husband is watching her, she is more likely to offend. “They sin more freely, and all shame is gone.” Rough handling makes them worse, as Chaucer’s good Wife of Bath boasts.

I made him fry in his own grease, With anger and sheer jealousy.

Of the two extremes, harsh treatment is the worse. It is a great fault—for some men are “enslaved to their wives”—to be excessively fond of them, to dote on them as Signor Deliro does on his Fallace, to be too effeminate, or, as some do, to suffer sickness for their wives, carry children for them, and, like the Tiberini, take to childbed for them. As some birds take turns incubating eggs, these men perform all women’s duties.

Caelius Rhodiginus, in Ancient Readings, book 6, chapter 24, mentions a man from Seneca who was so besotted with his wife that he could not bear a moment away from her. When he went out he wore her scarf next to his heart, and he would never drink except from a cup she had drunk from first.

We have many such doting fools who are their wives’ packhorses and slaves—“for a wife who masters her husband is a grievous evil,” as the comic poet puts it; no misery is greater for a man than allowing his wife to rule him. They carry her muff, dog and fan, let her wear the breeches, buy, spend and do whatever she pleases, go and come wherever and whenever she likes: they consent to it all.

Here, take my muff—and listen, husband: Now give me pearls, and carry my fan, and so on.

She demands a mantle, ribbons, earrings; Run! Why are you lingering here? She wants to be seen in public; Go and fetch a litter.

Many brave and worthy men have erred in this way: “this domestic disgrace has ruined many who were distinguished abroad.” Many noble senators and soldiers, as Pliny observes, have lost their honour by being “enslaved to their wives,” so foolishly allowing themselves to be ruled by them. Hence Cato’s bitter joke in Plutarch about his fellow citizens, the Romans: “We govern the whole world abroad, and our wives rule us at home.”

These offend at one extreme; those who are too harsh and severe offend far more at the other. An equally valid cause may be either partner’s prolonged absence, when they must spend much time away from home—as lawyers, physicians and sailors must because of their professions—or when they make frivolous, unnecessary journeys, stay away a long time for no purpose, sleep elsewhere and are forever gadding about on slight excuses.

This must provide grounds for suspicion. When they meanwhile treat their wives unkindly and never stay at home, it cannot help generating some such thought.

If you are late, your wife thinks you are in love, Or loved by someone, or drinking, or indulging yourself, And that you alone are enjoying yourself while she fares badly.

If you are absent long, your wife then thinks You are drunk, at ease, or with some pretty minx; You are doing well, or someone loves you, While she, poor soul, fares very badly at home.