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20 ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE

(4) A good marriage, if there are such, rejects the com-

y and conditions of love; it strives to show forth those of

friendship. It is a calm fellowship of life, full of fidelity, of

trust, and of an endless number of useful and substantial

mutual duties and obligations; no woman who rightly per- ceives its savour, —

Optato quam junxit lumine teda,! —

would desire to be in the place of mistress to her husband. If she be established in his affection as a wife, she is therein much more honourably and securely established. If he be elsewhere excited and eager, let him none the less be asked which he would prefer should be put to shame, his wife or his mistress; whose misfortune would grieve him most; for which he desires a higher position; these questions * admit no doubt in a sound marnage. That we see so few good mar- riages is a sign of its price and its value. If well formed and well regarded,’ there is no more admirable feature of our social life. We can not do without it, and yet we express contempt for it. The same thing happens that we see about cages: the birds outside are in despair at not getting in, and those within feel equal discomfort at not getting out. (c) Socrates, being asked which was more advantageous, to take or not to take a wife, replied: “Whichever a man does, he will repent it.” 4 (4) It isa covenant to which the saying, Homo homini either deus or dupus,' aptly applies; the meet- ing of many qualities is needed to frame it. It is in these days apparently best fitted for simple and common souls, with whom pleasures, curiosity, and idleness do not so much disturb it. Natures such as mine, of irregular hu- mours, which detest every sort of bondage and obligation, are not so well adapted to it:

1 Whom the marriage torch has joined on the desired day. — Catul- lus, LXIV, 79.

4 That is, the answers to these questions.

3 A de bien fagonner et d le bien prendre.

See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Socrates.

§ Man is to man either a god or a wolf. In the edition of 1530 0f the Adages of Erasmus, Homo Aomini lupus is found on p. 78, and Homo homini deus on p.271. The first sentence occurs alsoin Plautus, 4sin- aria, II, 4.88, and the other in Symmachus, Episile 10.104.

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