EARLY MODERN MARRIAGE COUNSELLING.

Xanthippe’s marriage is in bad shape. Let’s listen in on a consultation.

• He is a brute and threatened to beat me. What can I do? 

Remember that the church doesn’t allow divorce. There’s no exchanging your husband for another. He is yours whether you like it or not.

• How can I improve our relationship.

Try sex to rekindle his love and drive any annoyance or boredom out of his mind.

• He wastes my dowry on drink, whores, and gambling.

You have eyes only for his failings. Mark the good in him. The time to weigh his faults was before you married him. Now is the time to improve, not to blame him.

• How can I improve him?

What sort of men husbands are depends not a little on their wives. Usually it’s our fault that husbands are bad. Obtain his good will by submissiveness and courtesy. Whenever he is upset, soothe him with pleasant conversation or defer to his anger in silence until he cools off.

• And if that doesn’t work?

Present your husband with a child. That will help.

• I’m pregnant already. In fact, that’s why I married him. And I wish I could leave him again.

Think what a paltry thing a woman is if separated from her husband. A woman's highest praise is to be obedient. It’s the order of nature and the will of God that woman be entirely dependent on man.

(Source: Erasmus, Colloquies)