The Tenth Pleasure.
An empty Purse, makes a sorrowfull Pate. The Husband grows jealous. And the Wife also. The Husband is weary of his wife, and seeks to be divorced.
As continual prosperity giveth a great satisfaction to married people; and congealeth their hearts more and more with a fervent Love; so, on the contrary, we many times see, that when they are oppressed with bad Trading, Bankrupts, chargeable housekeeping and Children, it occasions and raises a coolness in the affections; insomuch that it disquiets their rest, and they consume the whole night many times with flying fancies and cogitations, how such an Assignment, or that Bill of Exchange, or the last half years rent shal be paid, &c. because the emptness of their Purse, and the slow paiment of their Debtors too much impedes them. And their yearly rents are so small and uncertain, that there runs away many times more in reparations and taxations annually then the rents amounts to. This occasions disquiet. From this it proceeds, that many times when they rise, their wits run a wool-gathering, and they are more inclined to look crabbedly, grumble and mumble, then to shew each other any signs of love and friendship: for an empty purse, makes a sorrowfull pate. This gives no smal defeat to the Pleasures of Marriage. Now they begin to observe that there is no state or condition in the World so compleat, but it hath some kind of imperficiency.
This kind of necessity may, by a man, in a Tavern, with good company, be rinsed with a glass of Wine, but never thereby be supplied: And the woman may with singing and dandling of her children, or controuling and commanding of her servants, a little forget it, yet nevertheless when John the cashier comes with the Bill of Exchange, and William the Bookkeeper with the Assignment, they ought both to be paid, or else credit and respect ly at the stake. This requires a great deal of prudence, to take care for the one, and preserve the other.
The best sort of Matches have found this by experience to be true: And for that reason they ofttimes stop a little hole to make a bigger. But because this can be of no long continuance, some do measure their business smaller out at first, and dwell at a lesser rent, hire out their Chambers and Cellars; and afterwards, make mony of some movables, will not turmoil themselves with so much trade, and great trust; nay sometimes also, take some other trade by the hand, the commodities whereof are of a quicker consumption. And if this happen to people that are not so perfectly well match'd, as our self-same-minded couple, and that the husband hath been a frequenter of company, you shall then seldom see that the husband and the Wife are concordant in their opinions; for he generally will be for trading in Wine and Tobacco, in which sort of commodities he is well studied; and the woman is for dealing in linnen, stockings, gloves, or such like Wares as she knows best how to traffick with. And verily it looks but sadly (although it oftentimes happens) when a Man and his Wife do contend about this. Nevertheless some men, because they imagine to have the best understanding, use herein a very hard way of discourse with their wives, making it all their business to snap and snarl, chide and bawl, nay threaten and strike also; which indeed rather mars then mends the matter, little thinking that quietness in a family is such a costly Jewell, that it seldom can be valued.
Others, on the contrary, take their greatest delight, when they know how, with affableness to please their wives humour, and with plausible words can admonish them what is best and fittest to be done; and rather to extoll those graces which are found in them, than to reprove their deficiencies: According to the instructions of the prudent Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who said, that men ought often to admonish their wives, seldom reprove them, and never strike them.
But many men whose understanding is turned topsie turvy in their brains, seek it in a contrary place, and where the Bank is lowest, the Water breaks in soonest. In such case the Women suffer cruelly. For if he be foul-mouth'd, he is not ashamed openly before his servants and other people to check, curb, and controul his wife lustily; and when they are in private together, reprehends her so bitterly, that he would not dare to mention it in the ears of honest people: because having seen that his Border, out of meer civility, cut many times the best peece at Table and presented to his Wife, bilds thereupon a foundation of jealousie, and an undoubted familiarity, which he privately twits her in the teeth with; though in publick he is ashamed to let it appear that he is jealous; because then he would be laught at for it; therefore he doth nothing but pout, mumble, bawl, scold, is cross-grain'd and troubled at every thing; nay looks upon his Wife and all the rest of his Family like a Welsh Goat, none of them knowing the least reason in the World for it.
In the meanwhile he useth all possible means privately to attrap his wife; for to see that which he never will see; and at which he is so divellishly possessed to have a wicked revenge; nay which he also never can see though he had a whole boxfull of spectacles upon his nose; because she never hath, or ever will give him the least reason for it. In that manner violating loves knot, and laying a foundation of implacable hatred.