St Francis happened to see a friar affectionately kissing another man’s wife. Far from misconstruing it, he immediately knelt and thanked God that so much charity remained. But jealous men, on the other hand, will attribute nothing to natural causes and allow nothing to familiar acquaintance, companionship or friendship. Instead, out of a hostile suspicion, they immediately lock women up and watch them, thinking these measures will prevent all such troubles: that is the way to remedy it! Yet by such tricks they make the trouble worse. It is useless to guard what is determined to get away.

No woman can be kept under guard if she wishes otherwise; Nor can you guard her mind, though you guard everything; Shut everyone out: the adulterer will be within.

None can be guarded if she herself resists; Though her body is confined, within her heart Adultery lurks: no skill can shut it out.

Argus with his hundred eyes cannot guard her, “and Love alone has often deceived him,” as in Ariosto.

Even if our hearts were all eyes, they said, We husbands would still surely be betrayed by our wives.

Jerome holds that “an unchaste wife cannot be guarded; a chaste one should not be; compulsion is an untrustworthy guardian of chastity.” What is the point of all your guarding? An unchaste woman cannot be kept under guard; a chaste woman should not be; necessity is a keeper not to be trusted. “What many desire is hard to guard”: what many covet can hardly be preserved, as John of Salisbury thinks.

I agree with Aeneas Sylvius: “Those jealous Italians do very wrong to lock up their wives; for women are so disposed that they most desire what is most denied them, and offend least when they have complete freedom to transgress.” Locking her up is useless if she is unchaste; and it is “tyrannical rule,” as our great master Aristotle calls it—an excessively tyrannical imposition, altogether improper.

For when she realizes that her husband watches and suspects her, “she sins more freely,” says Nevizzano. “The adulterous wife gave poison to her jealous husband.” She is infuriated, tries every means of avenging herself, and will therefore offend because she is unjustly suspected. The best course, then, is to let them do as they wish and give them complete freedom, without any guarding.

Our friends try in vain to dissuade us from this, For beauty will go where the most people gather.

If she is faithful, as Lucretia was to Collatinus, Laodamia to Protesilaus, or Penelope to her Ulysses, she will thus preserve her honour, good name and reputation:

I, Penelope, shall always be Ulysses’s wife.

And just as Phocion’s wife in Plutarch called her husband “her wealth, treasure, world, joy, delight, orb and sphere,” so will she call hers. The vow she made to her husband, love, virtue, religion and devotion are better guardians than all those locks, eunuchs and prisons. She will not be moved:

But may the earth first gape open beneath me, Or the almighty Father drive me with his thunderbolt to the shades, The pale shades of Erebus and the depths of night, Before, O chastity, I violate you or break your laws.

First I would have the earth swallow me, Before I violate my chastity; Or thunder from above drive me to hell, To dwell with those pale ghosts and dreadful nights.

She is resolved, with Dido, to be chaste: though her husband is unfaithful, she will be true. And as Octavia wrote to her Antony:

These walls that keep me here out of sight Shall keep me wholly unstained for you, And bear witness that I will be faithful: I will never stain your house, though you shame me.

Set her free among all those Tarquins and satyrs: she will not be tempted. In the time of the emperor Valens, says St Augustine, a certain Archidamus, a consul of Antioch, offered a beautiful young wife a hundred pounds of gold, and also to free her husband, who was then “under the harshest confinement,” a prisoner in darkness, “in return for one night’s intercourse”; but the chaste wife would not accept it.

“When a man praised Theano’s beautiful arm to his companions, she answered him sharply, ‘Sir, it is not public property.’” She reserves herself entirely for her husband.

Bilia had an old man for her husband, whose breath stank so badly that no one outside the home could bear it. “Coming home one day, he rebuked his wife for not telling him about it. She assured him that she would have told him, except that she thought every man’s breath was as strong as his.”

Tigranes and his lady Armena were invited to supper by King Cyrus. When they came home, Tigranes asked his wife how she liked Cyrus, and what she particularly admired in him. “She swore that she had not noticed him. When he asked again what she had noticed, then, and whom she had looked at, she answered: her husband, who had said he would die for her sake.”

Such are the qualities and dispositions of good women. If she is well disposed, she will behave like this; if, on the other hand, she is unchaste, use every means you can: she will remain so. “It is not the willingness that is lacking, but a seducer.” She has as many lies and excuses as a hare has gaps to escape through—tricks, pimps, procuresses and schemes for deception. It is useless to confine her, or try to reform her through harsh treatment. Kindness may perhaps accomplish something.

You yourself will prevail more effectively through your consideration.

Men and women are in the same category in this respect: they are won over sooner and calmed more effectively in this way. “They wish to be led, not forced.” Though she is as thorough a scold as Xanthippe, as cruel as Medea, as loud in her complaints as Hecuba, or as lustful as Messalina, such means may reform her, if anything can.