Moral Essays

people, remind them of their wives and children; and I judge that the contempt of marriage among the Turks renders the ordinary soldiery more base. Certainly, a wife and children are a species of discipline of humanity; and celibates are more cruel and harder of heart, well-suited to be made severe judges of criminal matters. Grave natures guided by custom, and therefore constant, are usually indulgent husbands, as was said of Ulysses: Vetulam prætulit immortalitati original: "He preferred his old wife to immortality". Chaste women are often proud and stubborn, as they presume upon the merit of their chastity. One of the best bonds of chastity and obedience in a wife is if she considers her husband wise, which she will never do if she finds him too jealous. Wives are the mistresses of young men, companions in middle age, and nurses to the old; so that a man can have a good excuse at any age to marry. Yet, with all this, he was held as one of the wise men who, to the question of at what time a man should marry, gave the answer: a young man not yet, an old man never.