P. 252. “Cold entertainment, cold reception, cold, clownish woman.”
P. 257. “Dr. Bathurst took his place of vice-chancellor, a man of good parts, and able to do good things, but he has a wife that scorns that he should be in print. A scornful woman! Scorns that he was dean of Wells! No need of marrying such a woman, who is so conceited that she thinks herself fit to govern a college or a university.”
P. 270. “Charles lord Herbert, eldest son of Henry, marquis of Worcester, was matriculated as a member of Ch. Ch. Ætat 16. natus Lond. I set this down here, because the father and ancestors were all catholics, but because the mother is a presbyterian, a Capel, she (against the father’s will, as it is said) will have him bred a protestant; so that by this change the catholics will lose the considerablest family in England, and the richest subject the king has.”
Selden, too, is cited as an antiquarian inattentive to gallantry.
“It is reason,” says he, “a man that will have a wife should be at the charge of her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets on him. He that will keep a monkey it is fit he should pay for the glasses he breaks.”
But ladies can, if they please, retaliate severely. A gentleman who had married a second wife, indulged himself in recurring too often in conversation to the beauty and virtues of his first consort. He had, however, barely discernment enough to discover that the subject was not an agreeable one to his present lady. “Excuse me, madam,” said he, “I cannot help expressing my regrets for the dear deceased.” “Upon my honour,” said the lady, “I can most heartily affirm that I am as sincere a mourner for her as you can be.”
DOWER.
There was an absolute necessity for providing a dower for the widow in the thirteenth century, because women at that period had no personal fortune to entitle them to a jointure by way of marriage. Shiernhook, and all the writers upon the ancient laws of the northern nations, dwell much upon the morgengavium; i. e. the present made by the husband to his wife the morning after consummation. It is singular, therefore, that we have no traces of such a custom. In the Philippine islands, a certain proportion of the dower is paid to the intended wife after liberty of conversing with her; a greater share for the permission of eating with her; and the balance upon consummation.[427]