They apparently share Cato’s view. He would have his servants “have intercourse with the female slaves at a fixed price, to avoid more serious offences, while forbidding them other women”—be intimate with such female creatures to avoid worse trouble in his household—and permitted it.

They consider it impossible for idle people—young, rich and vigorous—and so many servants, monks and friars to live chastely, and too tyrannical a burden to compel them to do so. They also consider it altogether improper to allow poor men, younger brothers and soldiers to marry at all, as with diseased people, those under religious vows, priests and servants. Therefore, to restrain and relieve one group as well as the other, they tolerate and overlook these brothels. They have many plausible arguments for their lawfulness, necessity and toleration, as they do for usury; and without question, in terms of policy they cannot be contradicted, though in terms of religion they must be opposed entirely.

Others prescribe love potions, spells and charms to keep men and women chaste. “So that a woman admits no other man besides her husband: take a he-goat’s bile and fat, and dry them; let it warm in oil,” and so on, “and she will love no one but you. In Alexis, Porta and others you will find more, and things much more absurd than these; likewise in Rhazes, so that a woman admits no man, and loves only her husband,” and so on. But these are mostly pagan, impious, irreligious, absurd and ridiculous devices.

The best way to avoid these and similar troubles is to remove their causes and occasions. Varro wrote a Menippean Satire for this purpose, but it is lost. Patrizi prescribes four rules to observe when choosing a wife, which anyone who wishes may read. The Spaniard Fonseca, in chapter 45 of his Amphitheatre of Love, sets out six special cautions for men and four for women; Samuel Neander, drawing on Schönborner, gives five for men and five for women; Antonio de Guevara gives many good lessons; Cleobulus only two; others offer different advice.

First, make a good choice in marriage, invite Christ to the wedding and, as St Ambrose advises, “have God preside over the marriage,” and pray to him for a wife: “For a prudent wife is given by the Lord,” Proverbs 19. A man should not be too rash and hasty in choosing, rush at the first woman he meets, or dote on every handsome, well-built woman he sees. He should choose her as much by his ears as by his eyes, carefully consider whom he is taking, her age and so on, and proceed cautiously. An old man should not marry a young woman, nor a young woman an old man:

How badly unequal bullocks work together at the plough!

Such matches must inevitably furnish a constant cause for suspicion and make the partners distasteful to one another.

As a little owl sits on tombs, and an eagle owl on corpses, So our girl sits beside Sophocles.

Night-crows on tombs, an owl on a dead body— So a girl lies in bed with Sophocles.

For Sophocles, as Athenaeus describes him, was a very old man, as cold as January, a bedfellow made of bones, yet he doted on Archippe, a young courtesan. Nothing could be more odious. “An old husband is unwelcome to a young wife”: an old man is a most unwelcome guest to a young woman, incapable and unsuitable.

Girls flee his embraces; Every love recoils, and Venus and Hymen too.

Similarly, a good fellow who had only a peck of grain to grind each week nevertheless insisted on building a new mill for it. He soon discovered his mistake: he must either leave the mill idle, pull it down altogether, or let others grind at it. So it is with these men, and so on.

Seneca therefore disapproves of all such ill-timed matches: “For repeated marriages give grounds for reproach.” And, as Cicero further protests, “it is improper for anyone, but ugly and filthy in old age.” “Love in old age is shameful”—one of the three things God hates. Plutarch, in his Against Colotes, fiercely attacks marriages attempted by old men “who, now physically impotent and deserted by pleasures, sin in their minds.” He raises the question whether, in some cases, it is even tolerable for such a man to marry:

Who seeks the pleasures of Venus without the strength for them,

one who is now past those sexual activities, “as a castrated man lies with a virgin and sighs,” Ecclesiasticus 30:20, and now complains with the man in Petronius, “This part, which was once an Achilles, is now dead and buried.” He is quite finished:

Until lately he lived fit for a girl, And fought his campaigns not without glory.

But the question is whether he may indulge himself like those Priapean popes who, in their decrepit old age, commonly lay between two young women every night: “whether he may still enjoy touching and fondling beautiful women,” as many foolish old fathers still do, to their own shame, their children’s ruin and their families’ destruction. He abhors it: “It must be fled from like a brutal and furious master.” It must be avoided like a mad master, not obeyed.

Alecto herself Carries the torches before the marrying couple, and an evil Hymen Howls mournfully.

The devil himself makes such matches. Levinus Lemnius lists three things that generally disturb marital peace. First, marrying at an unsuitable time, “as many people marry hastily and thoughtlessly when they are worn out and old.” Second, “marrying unequally in wealth and birth.” Third, “when a sick, impotent person marries a healthy one, the new bride’s hopes are disappointed.” Much dissatisfaction immediately follows.