Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CXLI
Fab. CXLI.
A Man and Two wives.
IT was now Cuckow-Time, and a Certain Middle-Ag'd Man, that was Half-Gray, Half-Brown, took a fancy to Marry Two Wives, of an Age One under Another, and Happy was the Woman that could please him Best. They took Mighty Care of him to All manner of Purposes, and still as they were Combing the Good Man's Head, they'd be Picking out here and there a Hair to make it all of a Colour. The Matronly Wife, she Pluck’d out All the Brown Hairs, and the Younger the White: So that they left the Man in the Conclusion no better then a Bald Buzzard betwixt them.
The Moral.
REFLEXION.
Marriges are Govern’d, rather by an Over ruling Fatality, then by any Solemnity of Choice and Judgment; though ‘tis a Hard Matter to find out a Woman, even at the Best, that's of a Just Scantling for her Age, Person, Humour, and Fortune to make a Wife of. This Fable presents us with One single Disparity that is of it self Sufficient, without a more then Ordinary Measure of Virtue and Prudence, to make a Man Miserable and Ridiculous. I speak of a Disparity of Years, which, in the Moral, takes in all Other Disproportions. The One’s too Young, T’other too Old; to shew us that Marriage is out of Season if it does not Hit the very Critical Point betwixt them. 'Tis much with Wedlock, as it is with our Sovereign Cordials and Antidotes. There go a Thousand Ingredients to the making of the Composition: But then if they be not Tim'd, Proportion'd, and Prepar’d according to Art, ’tis a Clog to us rather then a Relief. So that it would have been Well, if Nature had Prescrib’d the Dos of Womans-Flesh, as she has Determin'd the Necessity of it.