there may be no Meum and Tuum. And just as we call the mixture of water and wine by the name of wine, even though the water should preponderate,13 so we say that the house and property belongs to the man, even though the wife contribute most of the money.
§ xxi. Helen was fond of wealth, Paris of pleasure, whereas Odysseus was prudent, Penelope chaste. So the marriage of the last two was happy and enviable, while that of the former two brought an Iliad of woe on Greeks and barbarians alike.
§ xxii. The Roman who was taken to task by his friends for repudiating a chaste wealthy and handsome wife, showed them his shoe and said, "Although this is new and handsome, none of you know where it pinches me."14
A wife ought not therefore to put her trust in her dowry, or family, or beauty, but in matters that more vitally concern her husband, namely, in her disposition and companionableness and complaisance with him, not to make every-day life vexatious or annoying, but harmonious and cheerful and agreeable.
For as doctors are more afraid of fevers that are generated from uncertain causes, and from a complication of ailments, than of those that have a clear and adequate cause, so the small and continual and daily matters of offence between husband and wife, that the world knows nothing about, set the household most at variance, and do it the greatest injury.
§ xxiii. King Philip was desperately enamoured of a Thessalian woman,15 who was accused of bewitching him; his wife Olympias therefore wished to get this woman into her power. But when she came before her, and was evidently very handsome, and talked to her in a noble and sensible manner, Olympias said, "Farewell to calumny! Your charms lie in yourself."16 So invincible are the charms of a lawful wife to win her husband's affection by her virtuous character, bringing to him in herself dowry, and family, and philtres, and even Aphrodite's cestus.17