The Anatomy of Melancholy

The rest, I say, are trifles by comparison, amply compensated by the countless satisfactions and incomparable privileges of virginity. Think about these things; compare the two ways of life; and consider, last of all, these advantageous privileges a bachelor enjoys: how highly he is esteemed, how warmly all his friends welcome him, “with what feigned attentions,” as Tertullian observes—what counterfeit courtesies they will use to adore him, follow him and present him with gifts, “gifts with hooks in them.”

It is incredible, says Ammianus, with what humble service he will be worshipped, how loved and respected. If he has no children—and has money—he will be frequently invited out, waited on by princes, and have advocates to plead his case for nothing, as Plutarch adds. Do you wish, then, to be revered and highly esteemed?

But if you wish to become a master and your master’s king, Let no little Aeneas have played in your hall, Nor a daughter sweeter than she; A barren wife makes a pleasant and cherished friend of you.

Live as a single man, do not marry, and you will soon see how those legacy hunters—for that was their name in antiquity—will seek you out, bribe and flatter you for your favour, to become your heir or executor. Aruntius and Aterius, those famous parasites of this kind recorded by Tacitus and Seneca, will not surpass them.

Periplectomines, that fine old man in the play, “a delight of an old fellow,” understood this well in Plautus. When Pleusides urged him to marry so that he might have children of his own, he readily answered as follows:

When I have many relatives, what need have I of children? Now I live well and happily, just as I please. At my death I will direct that they share my property among my relatives. They eat at my house, care for me, visit to see how I am and what I want, Send me gifts, and invite me to lunch and dinner.

While I have kin, what need have I of brats? Now I live well, as I please, in splendid style. And when I die, I will give my goods away To those who invite me every day, Who visit me and send me pretty gifts, And vie to show me the most kindness.

You will receive the same respect if you live as he did, a single man. But once you marry, “consider that you will be a slave throughout your life.” Think what slavery it is, what a heavy burden you undertake, what a hard task you are bound to; for, as Jerome puts it, “He who has a wife is a debtor, bound as his wife’s slave.”

And how unceasing it is, what squalor attends it, what drudgery, what expense! For a wife and children are a perpetual bill of expenses, besides a myriad cares, miseries and troubles. As the comic poet Plautus said, merrily and truly, anyone who lacks trouble must become master of a ship or marry a wife. And as another supports him, wife and children have ruined me. So many, such endless burdens accompany this way of life.

Furthermore, “the wife has swollen up,” etc.; or, as he said in the comedy:

I married a wife: what misery I experienced there! Children were born: another worry.