The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

  Non secus atque olim tonitru cum rupta corusco

  Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos.

  … Ea verba loquutus,

  Optatos dedit amplexus, placidumque petivit

  Conjugis infusus gremio per membra soporem.

  [Venus fell silent; and as he hesitates she encircles him in her snow-white arms and warms him in her soft embrace. Soon he was welcoming the accustomed flame; its well-known heat struck him to the marrow and coursed through the bones of his trembling limbs. It was like unto the brilliant lightning which, with a thunderclap, flashes through the clouds… He spoke to her, gave her the embraces that she yearned for, and then his limbs sought quiet repose as he lay flowing around his wife’s bosom.]26

  What I find worth stressing is that Virgil in these lines portrays her as a little too passionate for a married Venus. Within that wise contract our sexual desires are not so madcap; they are darkened and have lost their edge. Cupid hates that couples should be held together except by himself, and only slackly comes into partnerships such as marriage which are drawn up and sustained by different title-deeds. In marriage, alliances and money rightly weigh at least as much as attractiveness and beauty. No matter what people say, a man does not get married for his own sake: he does so at least as much (or more) for his descendants, for his family. The customary benefits of marriage go way beyond ourselves and concern our lineage. That is why I like the practice of having marriages arranged at the hands of a third party rather than our own, not by our own judgement but by someone else’s. How contrary all that is to amorous compacts. Moreover there is a kind of lewdness (as I think I have said already) in deploying the rapturous strivings of Love’s licentiousness within such a relationship, which is sacred and to be revered.27 Aristotle says that we should approach our wives wisely and gravely for fear lest we unhinge their reason by arousing them too lasciviously. What he says for our moral sense the doctors say for our health’s sake, namely that too hot, voluptuous and unremitting a pleasure is deleterious to the sperm and impedes conception.28 They go on to say that in the case of the kind of intercourse which is feeble by nature (as the married kind is) we should undertake it rarely, at stated intervals, so as to fill it with a just and fruitful heat,

  quo rapiat sitiens venerem interiusque recondat.

  [by which the mare avidly seizes on Venus’ seed and buries it deep inside her.]29

  I know no marriages which fail and come to grief more quickly than those which are set on foot by beauty and amorous desire. Marriage requires foundations which are solid and durable; and we must keep on the alert. That boiling rapture is no good at all.

  Those who think to honour marriage by associating passion with it are like those (it seems to me) who to promote virtue hold rank to be none other than a virtue: there is some cousinship between rank and virtue but great differences as well; there is no gain in confusing their names and title-deeds: we wrong them both by confounding them that way. Noble rank is a beautiful quality and was rightly instituted; but, since it is a qualitydependent on others and can fall to a vicious man of naught, it is well below virtue in esteem. It is a ‘virtue’ – if indeed it be one – which is artificial and visible, dependent on time and fortune, differing in style in various countries; it lives, yet is mortal, having no more origin than the river Nile. Genealogical and not individual, it depends on succession; it is drawn from sequency – and a feeble sequency at that! Knowledge, fortitude, goodness, beauty, riches, indeed all other qualities, are subject to communication and sharing; rank is self-devouring and of no utility in the service of others. It was explained to one of our kings that a choice had to be made between two candidates for the same office: one of them was a nobleman, the other certainly not. He commanded that they should choose, irrespective of rank, the man with the greater merit; but should they prove to be of exactly equal worth, they should in that case take rank into account. That was to assign to it its just importance. When a young unproven man asked Antigonus for the position held by his father (a valiant man who had just died), he replied: ‘My friend, in such promotions I do not so much have regard for the rank of my soldiers as for their prowess.’30

  [C] It really should not be done as it was for the office-holders of the kings of Sparta – trumpeters, minstrels and cooks – who were succeeded in their charges by their sons, no matter how ignorant they might be, taking precedence over men best skilled at the craft.31 The people of Calicut make their nobility into a species higher than Man. Marriage is forbidden them, as is any profession but war. They can have their fill of concubines, and their women may have as many studs; jealousy is unknown between them; but it is an unforgivable crime punishable by death to lie with anyone of a different rank; they feel defiled if they are even touched by them as they go by; and since their noble state is marvellously polluted and tainted by it, they slaughter those who draw even a little too close to them; the untouchables are therefore forced to cry out at street corners as they walk along, like gondoliers in Venice, to avoid colliding. And persons of rank can order them to get out of their way whenever they want to. By such means the nobility avoid a disgrace which they consider indelible; the others avoid certain death. No stretch of time, no princely favour, no office, valour or wealth can entitle a commoner to become a nobleman. This is reinforced by their custom of forbidding marriages across trades: a woman descended from cobblers cannot marry a woodworker and parents are under the obligation of training their sons for their father’s calling – exactly that one: no other will do. By such means they maintain permanent distinctions in their lot.32

  [B] A good marriage (if there be such a thing) rejects the company and conditions of Cupid: it strives to reproduce those of loving-friendship. It is a pleasant fellowship for life, full of constancy, trust and an infinity of solid useful services and mutual duties. No wife who has ever savoured its taste –

  optato quant junxit lumine tæda

  [whom the marriage-torch has joined with its long-desired light]33

  –would ever wish to be the beloved mistress of her husband. If she is lodged in his affection as a wife then her lodging is far more honourable and secure. Even when he is swept off his feet with passion for another, just ask him whether he would prefer some disgrace to befall his wife or his mistress; whose misfortune would grieve him more? for which of them he desires the greater respect? In a healthy marriage such questions admit of no doubt. The fact that one sees so few good ones is a token of its value and price. Shape it and accept it rightly and there is no more beautiful element in our society. We cannot do without it yet we go and besmirch it, with the result that it is like birds and cages: the ones outside despair of getting in: the ones inside only care to get out. [C] When Socrates was asked whether it was more appropriate to take or not to take a wife, he, replied, ‘Whichever you do you will be sorry.’34 [B] It is a contractual engagement to which can be exactly applied the proverb: Man is god or wolf to Man. Many elements have to coincide to construct it. In our times it is considered to be more rewarding for those with uncomplicated everyday souls which are not so troubled by frivolity, curiosity and sloth. Roving humours such as mine which loathe all forms of tie or bond are not so proper for it:

  Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo.

  [For me too it is sweeter far to live with no chain about my neck.]35

  By my own design I would have fled from marrying Wisdom herself if she would have had me. But no matter what we may say, the customs and practices of life in society sweep us along. Most of my doings are governed by example not choice. Nevertheless I did not, strictly speaking, invite myself to the feast: I was led there, brought to it by external considerations.

  There is nothing so awkward – in fact nothing at all, no matter how ugly, vitiated or repugnant – but can become bearable under certain conditions and in certain circumstances, so vain is our human situation. When I was borne into marriage I was less broken in and more recalcitrant than I am now that I have made an assay
at it. And, womanizer though I am held to be, I have, in truth, more rigidly observed the laws of matrimony than I ever vowed or hoped. It is no longer the time for kicking over the traces once they have tied your legs together! We should tend our freedom wisely; but once we have submitted to the marriage-bond we must stay there under the laws of our common duty (or at least strive to). The actions of those husbands who accept the bargain and then show hatred and contempt are harsh and unjust. Equally unfair and intolerable is that fine counsel which I see passed from hand to hand among our women:

  Sers ton mary comme ton maistre,

  Et t’en guarde comme d’un traistre.

  [Serve him like a master: watch him like a traitor.]

  That is a challenge and a call to battle, meaning, ‘Act towards him with a constrained respect, hostile and suspicious.’

  I am too easy-going for such prickly designs. To tell the truth I have yet to attain to that perfect intellectual elegance and cunning which confound right and injustice and which ridicule any rule and order which may not accord with my desires. Just because I loathe superstition I do not go straightway mocking religion. Though we may not always do our duty we must always at least love and acknowledge it. [C] To take a wife without espousing her is treachery.

  [B] Let us get on.

  Our poet Virgil portrays a marriage full of concord and harmony, in which however there is not much fidelity. Did he mean to say that it is not impossible to surrender to the attacks of Cupid and yet nevertheless to keep a sense of duty towards one’s marriage; that one may injure marriage without tearing it totally apart? [C] A valet can diddle his master without hating him!

  [B] A wife may be attracted to an unknown man by beauty, opportuneness and destiny – for destiny plays its role in it:

  fatum est in partibus illis

  Quas sinus abscondit: nam, si tibi sidera cessent,

  Nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi

  [The privy parts hidden in your toga are fated: if the stars forsake you, it will do you no good to have a tool of unprecedented size]36

  –yet she may not be so totally attracted that there remain no bonds still holding her to her husband. We are dealing with two projects which each go their own distinct separate ways. A wife may give herself to another man whom – not because of the state of his finances but because of his very personality – she would never wish to marry. Few men have married their mistresses without repenting of it. [C] That even applies to the other world! What a wretched household, that of Jupiter and a wife whom he had seduced and had enjoyed having little affairs with! That, as the saying goes, is shitting in the basket and then plonking it on your head.

  [B] I have in my time seen a highly placed love-affair shamefully and dishonourably cured by a marriage. The motives of both are quite distinct. We can, without difficulty, love two very different and incompatible things.

  Isocrates said that the City of Athens was pleasing in the same way as a mistress served for love: all men took pleasure in spending their time and walking with her, but no man loved her well enough to wed her (that is, to make his home and habitation there).37

  It has angered me to see husbands hating their wives precisely because they are doing them wrong: at very least we should not love them less when the fault is ours; at very least they ought to be made dearer to us by our regrets and our sympathy.

  Isocrates meant that, while the ends were different, they were in certain circumstances not incompatible. For its part marriage has usefulness, justice, honour and constancy: a level but more universal pleasure. A love-affair is based on pleasure alone: and in truth its pleasure is more exciting, lively and keen: a pleasure set ablaze by difficulties. It must have stabs of pain and anguish. Without darts and flames of desire Cupid is Cupid no longer. In marriage the ladies are so lavish with their presents that they dull the edge of our passion and desire. [C] You merely need to see the trouble that Lycurgus and Plato give themselves in order to avoid this incongruity.

  [B] Women are not entirely wrong when they reject the moral rules proclaimed in society, since it is we men alone who have made them. There is by nature always some quarrelling and brawling between women and men: the closest union between us remains turbulent and tempestuous. In the opinion of our poet we treat women without due consideration. That is seen by what follows.

  We realize that women have an incomparably greater capacity for the act of love than we do and desire it more ardently – and we know that this fact was attested in Antiquity by that priest who had been first a man and then a woman:

  Venus huic erat utraque nota.

  [He knew Venus from both angles.]38

  Moreover we have learned from their own lips such proof as in former ages was provided by an Emperor and Empress of Rome, both infamous past masters on the job: he managed to deflower ten captive Sarmatian virgins in one night, but she in one night furnished the means of five-and-twenty engagements, changing her partners according to her needs and preferences:

  adhuc ardens rigide tentigine vulve,

  Et lassata viris, nondum satiata, recessit.

  [at last she retired, inflamed by a cunt stiffened by tense erections, exhausted by men but not yet satisfied.]

  Then there was that plea lodged in Catalonia by a wife as plaintiff against her husband’s excessively assiduous love-making: not I think because she was actually troubled by it (except within the Faith I believe in no miracles) but rather to have a pretext for pruning back and curbing the authority of husbands over their wives even in the very deed which forms the basic act of marriage, and also to show that the nagging and spitefulness of wives extend over the marriage-bed and trample under heel the sweet delights of Venus. Her husband, a really depraved brute of a fellow, made the rejoinder that even on days of abstinence he could not manage with less than ten times. Whereupon intervened that notable judgement of the Queen of Aragon: after mature deliberation in her counsel that good Queen (wishing to provide for all time an example of the moderation required in a proper marriage and a measuring-rod for temperance) ordained that it is necessary to limit and restrict intercourse to six times a day – sacrificing much of women’s needs and surrendering many of their desires in order to establish a scale which would be unexacting and therefore durable and unchanging.39 At which the doctors exclaim: ‘If that is the rate assessed by a reasoned moral reformation, what must be the lusts and the appetites of women?’ [C] Just think of the disparity of judgements on our appetites: Solon, the head of the school of lawgivers, with the aim of avoiding failure, sets the rate for such conjugal intimacy at three times a month.40

  We believe all that and teach all that. And then we go and assign sexual restraint to women as something peculiarly theirs, under pain of punishments of the utmost severity. No passion is more urgent than this one, yet our will is that they alone should resist it – not simply as a vice with its true dimensions but as an abomination and a curse,41 worse than impiety and parricide. Meanwhile we men can give way to it without blame or reproach.

  Those men who have made an assay at overcoming it, employing purely material remedies to cool down the body, to weaken it and to subdue it, have adequately vouched for the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of achieving it. Yet we men on the other hand want our wives to be in good health, energetic, radiant, buxom… and chaste at the same time, both hot and cold at once.

  As for marriage (which has the duty, we say, of stopping them from burning)42 it brings them but little respite given our manners: if they do take a husband in whom the vigour of youth is still a-boil he will boast of scattering it elsewhere:

  Sit tandem pudor, aut eamus in jus:

  Multis mentula millibus redempta,

  Non est hæc tua, Basse; vendidisti.

  [A little more propriety, please, or I’ll take you to law. I paid a few thousand for your cock. It is not yours now, Bassus: you sold it to me.]

  [C] And Polemon the philosopher rightly received a legal summons from his wife becaus
e he scattered on a barren field the fruitful seed he owed to her fertile one.

  [B] If they take one of those broken-down husbands, there they are, fully wed yet worse off than virgins and widows. (We assume that they are furnished with all they need because they have a man about the place, just as the Romans assumed that a Vestal Virgin called Clodia Laeta had been raped simply because Caligula had made an approach to her, even though it was proved that he had done no more than that.)43 Their needs are then not satisfied but increased, since their ardour, which would have remained calm in their single state, is awoken by contact with any male company whatsoever. That explains why those monarchs of Poland, Boleslaus and Kinge his consort, agreed together to take the vow of chastity on their very wedding-day as they lay side by side, maintaining it in the teeth of the pleasure which marriage offers: such considerations and circumstances made their chastity more meritorious.44

  We train women from childhood for the practices of love: their graces, their clothes, their education, their way of speaking regard only that one end. Those in charge of them impress nothing on them but the face of love, if only to put them off it by continually portraying it to them. My daughter – I have no other children – is of an age when the more passionate girls are legally allowed to marry. She is slender and gentle; by complexion she is young for her age, having been quietly brought up on her own by her mother; she is only just learning to throw off her childish innocence. She was reading from a French book in my presence when she came across the name of that well-known tree fouteau [a beech].45 The woman she has for governess pulled her up short rather rudely and made her jump over that awkward ditch. I let her be, so as not to interfere with women and their rules, for I play no part at all in that sort of education: feminine polity goes its own mysterious way: we must leave it entirely to them. But unless I am mistaken the company of twenty lackeys would not in half a year have imprinted on her mind an understanding of what those naughty syllables mean, how they are used and what they imply, as did that good old crone by her one reprimand and prohibition.