He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for
they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or
mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the
public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which,
both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.
Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have
greatest care of future times, unto which they know they must transmit
their dearest pledges. Some there are who, though they lead a single
life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future
times impertinences; nay, there are some other that account wife and
children but as bills of charges; nay more, there are some foolish,
rich, covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because
they may be thought so much the richer; for, perhaps they have heard
some talk, “Such an one is a great rich man,” and another except to
it, “Yea, but he hath a great charge of children;” as if it were an
abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life
is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds,
which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to
think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried
men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best
subjects, for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are
of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity
will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool.[107]
It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile
and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife.
For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortatives, put
men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising
of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base.
Certainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and
single men, though they be many times more charitable, because their
means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel
and hard-hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their
tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom,
and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of
Ulysses, “Vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati.”[108] Chaste women are
often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity.
It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the
wife, if she think her husband wise, which she will never do if she
find him jealous. Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for
middle age, and old men’s nurses, so as a man may have a quarrel[109]
to marry when he will; but yet he was reputed one of the wise men that
made answer to the question when a man should marry, “A young man not
yet, an elder man not at all.”[110] It is often seen that bad husbands
have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their
husbands’ kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in
their patience; but this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their
own choosing, against their friends’ consent, for then they will be
sure to make good their own folly.