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ESSAY VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE

HE

LIFE.

E 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 impertinencies;' 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 a 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

1 Impertinencies.

Things wholly irrelevant; things of little or no importance. 'O matter and impertinency mixed,

Reason and madness.'-Shakespere.

'There are many subtle impertinences learnt in schools.'-Watts.

2 Charges. Cost; expense.

3 Humorous.

I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,

And entertain a score or two of tailors.'-Shakespere. Governed by one's own fancy or predominant inclination. 'I am known to be a humorous patrician.'-Shakespere. 'He that would learn to pass a just sentence upon men and things, must beware of a fanciful temper, and a humorous conduct in affairs.'-Watts.

'Or self-conceited, play the humorous Platonist.'-Drayton.

4 As. That. See page 22.

2

that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. 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 among 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 hardhearted (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 prætulit immortalitati.' 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 quarrel3 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." It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's 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 chusing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

1 Exhaust. Exhausted.

"The wealth

Of the Canaries was exhaust, the health

Of his good Majesty to celebrate.'-Habington.

He preferred his old woman to immortality.'-Plut. Gryll. 1.

3 Quarrel. A reason; a plea. (Perhaps, from Quare, wherefore, used in law for a plea in trespass.) Or perhaps this oldest use of it for reason or plea, is the original meaning of querela, retained in querulous-putting forth a pitiful plea. 'He thought he had a good quarrel to attack him.'-Holinshed.

4 Thales. Vid. Diog. Laert. i. 26.

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It is remarkable that Bacon does not at all advert to the notion of the superior holiness of a single life, or to the enforced celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy.

It is hardly necessary to remark-much less to prove-that, even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary from day to day, and not to be enforced by a life-long vow or rule. For in this case,

even though a person should not repent of such a vow, no one can be sure that there is not such repentance. Supposing that even a large majority of priests, and monks, and nuns, have no desire to marry, every one of them may not unreasonably be suspected of such a desire, and no one of them, consequently, can be secure against the most odious suspicions.

Accordingly, many of the most intelligent of the Roman Catholic laity are very desirous of having the law of celibacy removed. It is not reckoned an article of the faith, but merely a matter of discipline. And accordingly, those of the Greek and

Armenian Churches who have consented to acknowledge Romish supremacy, have been allowed to retain their own practice as to this matter; the Armenian Church allowing the marriage of their priests, and the Greek Church requiring the parish priests to be married.

When this was urged by an intelligent Roman Catholic layman, to the late Archbishop Murray, he replied that but few Armenian priests do avail themselves of their privilege. This, answered the other, is a strong reason on my side; for the advantage which you think there is in an unmarried priesthood is secured in a great majority of instances, with the very great additional advantage that their celibacy is there understood to be completely voluntary. But doubtless the Romish hierarchy have been much influenced by the consideration which Bacon mentions, that 'single men are the best servants.' It was wished to keep the clergy, who are the employed servants of the Roman Church, as distinct as possible from the Body of the people.

In the Greek Church, though every parish priest must be a married man, the bishops never are, being always taken from among the monks. The result of this is (1) that the parish priests, since they cannot rise any higher, are regarded as an inferior order of men; and, according to the testimony of all travellers, are a very low set. And (2) the bishop who has to govern, through the medium of the priests, all the parishes of his diocese, is necessarily a person destitute of all experience. is as if the command of a fleet were given (as is sometimes done by the Russians) to a military officer.

A parish priest in the Greek Church, if his wife dies, is permanently suspended. For none can officiate who is not married; and he is not allowed to marry again. It is thus they interpret, as some Protestant divines also have done (besides Doctor Primrose), the rule that he is to be the husband of

one wife.'

The rule is manifestly and confessedly of doubtful interpretation; some understanding it of a prohibition merely of polygamy; and others, as relating merely to conjugal fidelity. This last has more to be said in its favour than would appear from our translation, on account of the double meaning in

the original of Turn, and also of Avnp, in Greck, and Vir in Latin.

It has been urged against this interpretation, that such a rule would have been superfluous; but surely the same might be said against the rule that the deacon should be no striker,' and not given to much wine.'

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