Marriage is the tying of such a knot, that nothing but death can unloose. Common reason suggests so much, that we should be long a-doing that which can but once be done. Where one design hath been graveled in the sands of delay, thousands have been split on the rock of precipitance. Rash adventures yield gain. Opportunities are not like tides, that when one is past, another returns; but yet take heed of flying without your wings; you may breed such agues in your bones, that may shake you to your graves. 1. Let me preserve you from a bad choice. 2. Present you with a good one. To preserve you from a bad choice, take that in three things: 1. Choose not for beauty. 2. Choose not for dowry. 3. Choose not for dignity. He that loves to beauty, buys a picture; he that loves for dowry, makes a purchase; he that leaps for dignity, matches with a multitude at once. The first of these is too blind to be directed; the second too base to be accepted; the third too bold to be respected. 1. Choose not by your eyes. 2. Choose not by your hands. 3. Choose not by your ears.
1. Choose not by your eyes, looking at the beauty of the person. Not but this is lovely in a woman; but that this is not all for which a woman should be beloved. He that had the choice of many faces stamps this character upon them all, favour is deceitful and beauty is vain. The sun is more bright in a clear sky, than when the horizon is clouded; but if a woman’s flesh hath more of beauty than her spirit hath of christianity, it is like poison in sweet-meats, most dangerous: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair,” Gen. vi. 2. One would have thought that they should rather have looked for grace in the heart, than for beauty in the face: take care of running at the fairest signs; the swan hath black flesh under her white feathers.
2. Choose not by your hands, for the bounty of the portion. When Cato’s daughter was asked why she did not marry? she thus replied, she could not find the man that loved her person above her portion. Men love curious pictures, but they would have them set in golden frames. Some are so degenerate as to think any good enough, who have but goods enough. Take heed, for sometimes the bag and baggage go together. The person should be a figure, and the portion a cypher, which added to her, advances the sum, but alone signifies nothing. When Themistocles was to marry his daughter, two suitors courted her together, the one rich and a fool, the other wise but poor; and being asked which of the two he had rather his daughter should have? he answered Mallem virum fine pecuni: ‘I had rather she should have a man without money, than money without a man.’
3. Choose not by your ears, for the dignity of her parentage. A good old stock may nourish a fruitless branch. There are many children who are not the blessings, but the blemishes of their parents; they are nobly descended, but ignobly minded: Such was Aurelius Antonious, of whom it was said, that he injured his country of nothing, but being the father of such a child. There are many low in their descents, that are high in their deserts; such as the cobler’s son, who became a famous captain; when a great person upbraided the meanness of his original, “My nobility,” said he, “began with me, but thy nobility ends with thee.” Piety is a greater honour than parentage. She is the best gentlewoman that is heir of her own deserts, and not the degenerate offspring of another’s virtue. To present you with a good choice in three things.
1. Choose such a one as will be a subject to your dominion. Take heed of yoking yourselves with untamed heifers.
2. Choose such a one as may sympathize with you in your affliction. Marriage is just like a sea voyage, he that enters into this ship, must look to meet with storms and tempests, 1 Cor. vii. 20. They that marry shall have trouble in the flesh. Flesh and trouble are married together, whether we marry or no; now a bitter cup is too much to be drunk by one mouth. A heavy burthen is easily carried by assistance of other shoulders. Husband and wife should neither be proud flesh, nor dead flesh. You are fellow-members, therefore you should have a fellow-feeling. While one stands safe on the shore, pity should be shown to him that is tost on the sea. Sympathy in suffering is like a dry house in a wet day.
3. Choose such a one as may be serviceable to your salvation. A man may think he hath a saint, when he hath a devil; but take heed of a harlot, that is false to thy bed; and of a hypocrite, that is false to thy God.
2. To those women who have husbands, how to use them. In two things.
1. Carry yourselves towards them with obedience. Let their power command you, that their praise may commend you. Though you may have your husband’s heart, yet you should love his will. Till the husband leaves commanding, the wife must never leave obeying. As his injunctions must be lawful, so her subjection must be loyal.
2. With faithfulness. In creation, God made not woman for many men, or many women for one man. Every wife should be to her husband as Eve was to Adam, a whole world of women; and every husband should be to his wife as Adam was to Eve, a whole world of men. When a river is divided into many channels, the main current starves.