If you give her the management of the whole house, you must yourself be her slave. For necessity is but a faithless keeper of chastity, and she alone really deserves to be called pure, who is free to sin if she chooses. It is difficult to guard what many long for. It is annoying to have what no one thinks worth possessing. But the misery of having an ugly wife is less than that of watching a comely one.
Nothing is safe, for which a whole people sighs and longs.
One man entices with his figure, another with his brains, another with his wit, another with his open hand. Somehow, or sometime, the fortress is captured which is attacked on all sides. But if she herself is poorly, we must fall sick with her and never leave her bedside. A wise man can never be alone. He has with him the good men of all time, and turns his mind freely wherever he chooses.