The Anatomy of Melancholy

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: