Qui non litigat, Cœlebs est.

The man who has a quiet house, has no wife. Certainly many of the Greek writers appear to have had a great horror of matrimony, to which, perhaps, may be attributed the high colouring they gave to the character of Xantippe, who was not, it is probable, so great a termagant as they have painted her. Some of their apothegms follow.

Mulier in ædibus atra tempestas viro.

A wife, like a tempest, is a perpetual disturbance to the house.

Incendit omnem feminæ zelus domum.

The restless spirit of the woman keeps the house in a perpetual flame; and

Muliere nil est pejus, atque etiam bonâ.

Nothing is worse than a woman, even than the best of them. «It is better», Solomon says, «to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman»; and in another place, «It is better to dwell in the corner of the house-top, than with a brawling woman, and in a wide house». Montaigne has an observation equally satirical: «The concern», he says, «that some women shew at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from, their desire of seeing and being with them, but from their apprehension that they are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting». A similar idea pervades the following, by Buchannan, who in the early part of Montaigne's life, was one of his preceptors.

«Illa mihi semper præsenti, dura Neæra,
Me quoties absum, semper abesse dolet,
Non desiderio nostri, non mœret amore,
Sed se non nostri posse dolore frui».

Neæra, who treats me when present with the greatest cruelty, yet never fails to lament my absence; not from the affection she bears me, but she grieves that she cannot then enjoy the pleasure of seeing me wretched; which may be better liked, perhaps, in the following:

«Neæra present, to my vows unkind,
When absent, still my absence seems to mourn;
Not moved by love, but that my tortur'd mind,
With anguish unenjoyed by her, is torn».

To finish the bad side of the picture, one only of our adages shall be given. To see a woman weeping, we say, is as piteous a sight, as to see a goose go barefoot. From all which we learn, that as there are some turbulent and ill-disposed women, so there have not been wanting men, ill-natured enough to make them the models, from which they chose to characterize the sex. Hesiod more justly and more reasonably says,

«Sors potior muliere probâ, non obtigit unquarn
Ulla viro, contraque malâ nil tetrius usquam est».

As the possession of a good woman, constitutes the greatest felicity a man can enjoy, so the being yoked to a bad one, is the greatest torment that can be inflicted upon him. The Spaniards, consonant to this, say, De buenas armas es armado, quien con buena mujer es casado, the man is well provided who is married to a good woman. «He that hath no wife», Cornelius Agrippa sayeth, «hath no house, because he doth not fasten (live) in his house; and if he have, he dwelleth therein as a stranger in an inn; he that hath no wife, although he be exceeding rich, he hath almost nothing that may be called his, because he hath not to whom he may leave it, nor to whom to trust, all that he hath is in danger of spoyle; his servants rob him, his companions beguile him, his neighbours despise him, his friends regard him not, his kinsfolk seek his undoing; if he hath any children out of matrimonie, they turn him to shame, wherefore the laws forbid him to leave them either the name of their familie, the armes of their predecessors, or their substance; and he is also, together with them, put back from all public offices and dignities by the consent of all law makers: this finally is the only state of life, wherein a man may lead the happiest life of all, in loving his wife, in bringing up his children, in governing his familie, in saving his substance and in encreasing his offspring; wherein if any charge and labour happen, and no state of life is without its cross, verily this only is that light burden and sweet yoke which is in wedlock».