1. Hast thou means? thou hast one to spend it.—2. Hast none? thy beggary is increased.—3. Art in prosperity? thy happiness is ended.—4. Art in adversity? like Job's wife she'll aggravate thy misery, vex thy soul, make thy burden intolerable.—5. Art at home? she'll scold thee out of doors.—6. Art abroad? If thou be wise keep thee so, she'll perhaps graft horns in thine absence, scowl on thee coming home.—7. Nothing gives more content than solitariness, no solitariness like this of a single life,—8. The band of marriage is adamantine, no hope of losing it, thou art undone.—9. Thy number increaseth, thou shalt be devoured by thy wife's friends.—10. Thou art made a cornuto by an unchaste wife, and shalt bring up other folks' children instead of thine own.—11. Paul commends marriage, yet he prefers a single life.—12. Is marriage honourable? What an immortal crown belongs to virginity?
So Siracides himself speaks as much as may be for and against women, so doth almost every philosopher plead pro and con, every poet thus argues the case (though what cares vulgus nominum what they say?): so can I conceive peradventure, and so canst thou: when all is said, yet since some be good, some bad, let's put it to the venture. I conclude therefore with Seneca,
———cur Toro viduo jaces?
Tristem juventam solve: mine luxus rape,
Effunde habenas, optimos vitae dies
Effluere prohibe.
[5959]—calamitosus est qui inciderit
In malam uxorem, felix qui in bonam,
Crasam et qui nunquam amavit, quique amavit, eras amet,
Ver novum, ver jam canorum, ver natus orbis est,