Complete. From the “Holy State.”
ST. PAUL to the Colossians, iii. 18, first adviseth women to submit themselves to their husbands, and then counselleth men to love their wives. And sure it was fitting that women should first have their lesson given them, because it is hardest to be learned, and therefore they need have the more time to con it. For the same reason we first begin with the character of a good wife.
She commandeth her husband, in any equal matter, by constant obeying him. It was always observed that what the English gained of the French in battle by valor, the French regained of the English by cunning in treaties; so if the husband should chance by his power, in his passion, to prejudice his wife’s right, she wisely knoweth, by compounding and complying, to recover and rectify it again.
She never crosseth her husband in the springtide of his anger, but stays till it be ebbing water. And then mildly she argues the matter, not so much to condemn him as to acquit herself. Surely men, contrary to iron, are worse to be wrought upon when they are hot, and are far more tractable in cold blood. It is an observation of seamen, that, if a single meteor or fireball falls on their mast, it portends ill luck; but if two come together (which they count Castor and Pollux) they presage good success; but, sure, in a family it bodeth most bad when two fireballs (husband’s and wife’s anger) come both together.
She keeps home, if she hath not her husband’s company or leave for her patent to go abroad; for the house is the woman’s centre. It is written, Ps. civ. 2, “The sun ariseth, man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labor until the evening”; but it is said of woman, Prov. xxxi. 15, “She riseth while it is yet night,” for man in the race of his work starts from the rising of the sun, because his business is without doors, and not to be done without the light of heaven; but the woman hath her work within the house, and therefore can make the sun rise by lighting of a candle.
Her clothes are comely rather than costly, and she makes plain cloth to be velvet by her handsome wearing it. She is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in variety of suits every day new,—as if a good gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once; but our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband’s estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth that she forgets what she is by match.
Arcana imperii (her husband’s secrets) she will not divulge. Especially she is careful to conceal his infirmities. If he be none of the wisest, she so orders it that he appears on the public stage but seldom; and then he hath conned his part so well, that he comes off with great applause. If his forma informans be but bad, she provides him better formas assistentes, gets him wise servants and secretaries.
In her husband’s absence, she is wife and deputy husband, which makes her double the files of her diligence. At his return he finds all things so well that he wonders to see himself at home when he was abroad.
In her husband’s sickness, she feels more grief than she shows. Partly that she may not dishearten him, and partly because she is not at leisure to seem so sorrowful that she may be the more serviceable.
Her children, though many in number, are none in noise, steering them with a look whither she listeth. When they grow up, she teacheth them not pride, but painfulness, making their hands to clothe their backs, and them to wear the livery of their own industry. She makes not her daughters gentlewomen before they be women, rather teaching them what they should pay to others than receive from them.
The heaviest work of her servants she maketh light, by orderly and seasonably enjoining it; wherefore her service is counted a preferment, and her teaching better than her wages. Her maids follow the precedent of their mistress,—live modestly at home. One asked a grave gentlewoman how her maids came by so good husbands, and yet seldom went abroad: “Oh,” said she, “good husbands come home to them.”
