Therefore, my advice is: that it is not convenient
to suffer children, or such as are not of age, to marry, or get
children.
He that proposes to marry, and wishes to enjoy happiness in that state,
should choose a wife descended from honest and temperate parents, she
being chaste, well bred, and of good manners. For if a woman has good
qualities, she has portion enough. That of Alcmena, in Plautus, is much
to the purpose, where he brings in a young woman speaking thus:--
"I take not that to be my dowry, which
The vulgar sort do wealth and honour call;
That all my wishes terminate in this:----
I'll obey my husband and be chaste withall;
To have God's fear, and beauty in my mind,
To do those good who are virtuously inclined."
And I think she was in the right, for such a wife is more precious than
rubies.
It is certainly the duty of parents to bring up their children in the
ways of virtue, and to have regard to their honour and reputation; and
especially to virgins, when grown to be marriageable. For, as has been
noted, if through the too great severity of parents, they may be crossed
in their love, many of them throw themselves into the unchaste arms of
the first alluring tempter that comes in the way, being, through the
softness and flexibility of their nature, and the strong desire they
have after what nature strongly incites them to, easily induced to
believe men's false vows of promised marriage, to cover their shame: and
then too late, their parents repent of their severity which has brought
an indelible stain upon their families.
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