The Anatomy of Melancholy

Besides, their wives, as Basil notes, “shamelessly expose themselves to men’s gaze, tossing their tunics and dancing before them.” They shamelessly thrust themselves into other men’s company and, by their indecent, wanton behaviour, provoke and tempt those watching. Virtuous women should stay at home; and the Greeks wisely prescribed and practised this:

Let no woman offer herself to public view Without a man to supervise her.

This presumably led Phidias at Elis to paint Venus treading on a tortoise, a symbol of women’s silence and staying at home. For a woman out alone is like a deer escaped from a park, “pursued by a thousand hunters,” whom every hunter follows. Besides, in such places she cannot defend herself so well. Like the virgin Dinah, Genesis 34:2, who lost her virginity when “going out to see the daughters of the land,” she may suddenly be assaulted and violated. “Defenceless does, what are we but prey?”

And so some philosopher—I do not know who—would have women go out only three times in their lives: “to be baptized, married and buried.” But he was too strict. Let them have a proper measure of freedom and go out respectably, “provided they do not leave twenty years of their age at home,” as a good fellow said—provided they do not look twenty years younger outside than at home, trim, neat angels abroad but beasts, dowdies and slatterns at home. Instead, let them try in every way to please and satisfy their husbands; above all, be peaceable, obedient, silent and patient. If their husbands are provoked, angry and scold a little, their wives must not answer back but take it well.

A respectable woman—I cannot now say where she lived, but she was reportedly respectable—happened to hear one of her women friends complain of her husband’s bad temper. She told her an excellent remedy and gave her a glass of water, which she was to hold still in her mouth whenever he raged, “as often as it happened,” whenever he scolded. She did this two or three times successfully. Eventually, on seeing her neighbour, she thanked her warmly and insisted on knowing the ingredients. The neighbour told her briefly what it was: “Clean water, and nothing more.” For it was her silence, not the water, that effected the cure.

Let every contrary woman follow this example and be quiet indoors. As Marcus Aurelius prescribes, all good wives who value their reputations must observe this necessary caution: go out little, attend to their work at home, look after their household affairs and private business, “devoting themselves to household management”; be sober, thrifty, careful, prudent and modest; and settle themselves to live within their husbands’ means, as a good housewife should.

Taking pleasure in being trained in useful pursuits, she will share the tasks And lighten the work with song; the girls’ busy company, Arranged like a garland, will keep The spindles and spinning wheels turning, and so on.

In any case, it is good to keep them in private life, not in prison.

Whoever guards his wife with bars and bolts, Though wise in his own eyes, is a fool and knows nothing.