At Prittlewell Church a man buried his two wives in one grave, and then placed over their remains this callous rigmarole:
"Were it my choice that either of the twaine
Might be restor'd to me to enjoy again,
Which should I choose?
Well, since I know not whether,
I'll mourn for the loss of both,
But wish for neither."[236:A]
On the tomb of a man at Bilston we get the other side, as the widow selected as a text the words: "If any man ask you, why do you loose him, then shall ye say unto him, because the Lord hath need of him." Those who recall the occasion on which these words were first used will see that her husband was, by implication, an ass.
Mere loquacity is satirised in the two following:—
"Here lies, returned to Clay,
Miss Arabella Young,
Who, on the first of May,
Began to hold her tongue."
"Beneath this silent stone is laid
A noisy, antiquated maid,
Who from her cradle talked till death,
And ne'er before was out of breath."
Other proverbs that deal with womankind are the following:—"He that has a wife has strife"; "Of all tame beasts sluts are the worst"; "If a woman were as little as good, a peascod would make her a gown and a hood"; "He that loses his wife and a farthing hath great loss of the farthing"; "Every man can tame a shrew but he that hath her"; "Lips, however rosy, must be fed"; "Women, wind, and fortune soon change." The feminine readiness to take refuge in tears is responsible for the following cynical adage:—"It is no more sin to see a woman weep than to see a goose go barefoot."[237:A] Another well-known proverb is that "No mischief in the world is done, but a woman is always one"; while the French say, if any inexplicable trouble breaks out, "Cherchez la femme"—in the assured belief that a woman is in some way or another at the bottom of it. Lamartine, on the other hand, declares that "There is a woman at the beginning of all great things." There is considerable truth in both statements, antagonistic as they are.
In the household where the unfortunate husband has allowed the control to slip into the hands of his wife, "The grey mare is the better horse." The French call this "Le marriage d'epervier"—a hawk's wedding, because the female hawk is the bigger bird. In "A Treatyse Shewing and Declaring the Pryde and Abuse of Women Now a Days," c. 1550, we find:
"What! shall the graye mayre be the better horse,
And be wanton styll at home?
Naye, then, welcome home, Syr Woodcocke,
Ye shall be tamed anone."
Heywood, writing in the year 1546, has the couplet: