The Anatomy of Melancholy

If you would avoid them, remove every cause of suspicion and jealousy: marry an ugly woman, fetch her from Cassandra’s temple, which used to be a sanctuary in Italy for all unattractive maidens. Then you can be sure that no man will cuckold you except out of spite. A citizen of Byzantium in Thrace had a filthy, dowdy, ugly slattern for a wife. Finding her in bed with another man, he cried out in astonishment, “O wretch! What necessity drove you here?” You poor wretch, what necessity brought you here? As well he might ask: for who could desire such a woman?

But this must be understood cautiously. Most err at the other extreme: they prefer wealth to beauty and, provided a woman is rich, do not care how she looks. But they are quite as much at fault as the rest. “You must consider a wife’s looks,” as John of Salisbury advises, “lest, on seeing another woman, you immediately think your wife repulsive”—like Chaucer’s knight who married an old woman:

And all that day he hid himself like an owl, So miserable was he that his wife looked so ugly.

Pay attention to your wife’s appearance, lest, when you see another woman, you come to loathe her, she becomes jealous, and you unfaithful.

If your wife is ugly and your maid beautiful, Do not make use of the maid.

I could perhaps give an example. “It is a burden to possess what no one thinks worth having”—a misery to possess what no man likes. On the other hand, “What many love is hard to guard.” And, as the boastful soldier bragged in the comedy, “It is an immense misery for a man to be too handsome.” Scipio never besieged Carthage so fiercely as these young gallants will beset your house: one with wit or good looks, another with wealth, and so on. If she is beautiful, says Guazzo, she will be suspected in any event.

Both extremes are bad: “A beautiful woman is quickly loved; an ugly one readily desires.” One is soon beloved, the other loves; one is hard to guard because she is proud and arrogant, the other not worth guarding. What should be done in this case? Ennius, in Melanippe, advises you as a friend to choose “moderate beauty, if you wish to preserve chastity intact”—one of a middling sort, neither too beautiful nor too ugly:

Nor does her beauty please me more than her chastity.

With old Cato, let her beauty be suitable, “neither exquisite nor mean,” between the two. I approve of this. But between the other two choices I decide with John of Salisbury, “other things being equal”—both equally wealthy and endowed—“it is more miserable to possess an ugly woman than to guard a beautiful one.” I would rather marry a beautiful woman and take the risk than be troubled with a blowsy one. But do as you please: I speak only for myself.

In any case, “as I advise again,” I would give you this counsel: whether she is beautiful or ugly, choose a wife from a good family and parentage, well brought up in a respectable place.

First consider in your mind her lineage, Her looks, her age, and above all the young woman’s Character, as she comes a new bride to your shared home.