The Anatomy of Melancholy

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.