y wrangling or contention.

Sec. I. Solon bade the bride eat a quince the first night of marriage,
intimating thereby, it seems, that the bridegroom, was to expect his
first pleasure from the bride's mouth and conversation.

Sec. II. In Boeotia they dress up the bride with a chaplet of asparagus,
for as the asparagus gives most excellent fruit from a thorny stalk, so
the bride, by not being too reluctant and coy in the first approaches,
will make the married state more agreeable and pleasant. But those
husbands who cannot put up with the early peevishness of their brides,
are not a whit wiser than those persons who pluck unripe grapes and
leave the ripe grapes for others.[156] On the other hand, many brides,
being at first disgusted with their husbands, are like those that stand
the bee's sting but neglect the honey.

Sec. III. Married people should especially at the outset beware of the
first quarrel and collision, observing that vessels when first
fabricated are easily broken up into their component parts, but in
process of time, getting compact and firmly welded together, are proof
against either fire or steel.

Sec. IV. As fire gets kindled easily in chaff or in a wick or in the fur of
hares, but is easily extinguished again, if it find no material to keep
it in and feed it, so we must not consider that the love of
newly-married people, that blazes out so fiercely in consequence of the
attractions of youth and beauty, will be durable and lasting, unless it
be fixed in the character, and occupy the mind, and make a living
impression.[157]

Sec. V. As catching fish by drugged bait is easy, but makes the fish poor
to eat and insipid, so those wives that lay traps for their husbands by
philtres and charms, and become their masters by pleasure, have stupid
senseless and spoiled husbands to live with. For those that were
bewitched by Circe did her no good, nor could she make any use of them
when they were turned into swine and asses, but she was greatly in love
with the prudent Odysseus who dwelt with her sensibly.

Sec. VI. Those women who would rather lord it over fools than obey sensible
men, resemble those people who would rather lead the blind on a road,
and not people who have eyesight and know how to follow.

Sec. VII. Women disbelieve that Pasiphaee, a king's wife, was enamoured of
a bull, although they see some of their sex despising grave and sober
men, and preferring to associate with men who are the sla