Stephani de Malescot Iuriscos. ac Belarborensis Theophilologi, de Nuptiis Liber Paradoxicus, nova & recenti methodo compositus

and all the interpreters of Canon Law on the 6th day of February in the year 1559, with supreme reasoning, various arguments, and infinite authorities, envy—as usually happens—was ignited in many. For most prefer to err, and defend the opinion they have loved with the greatest pugnacity, rather than to seek out without obstinacy what can be most constantly said, as that man Cicero rightly shows in the 4th book of his Academica Academic Questions. They do not suffer themselves to be refuted or contradicted; they are, as it were, addicted and consecrated to certain designated opinions, and so bound by that necessity that even those things they are not accustomed to approve, they are compelled to defend for the sake of consistency. It is difficult to change one's mind, and to root out immediately what is deeply implanted in one's habits. What is so futile as to approve of anything not understood, to approve of falsehoods for truths, to resist impudently, to hold wicked opinions, or to hold uncertainties for certainties and falsehoods for truths? Therefore, although all may roar, I shall still say what I feel, and I will begin my discourse on marriage, which is entangled in the many opinions of Jurists, Popes, and Theologians, starting from its description. Marriage, or matrimony, is the conjunction of a man and a woman, a partnership of all life, a communion of divine and human law, containing an undivided custom of life: