Tertullian

“ Assuredly, most free will he be from encumbrance in persecutions, most constant in martyrdoms, most prompt in distributions of his goods, most temperate in acquisitions; lastly, undistracted by cares will he die, when he has left children behind him—perhaps to perform the last rites over his grave! ”

“ Some (naturally) barren woman, I suppose, or (some woman) of an age already feeling the chill of years, will be the object of your forecasting search. A course prudent enough, and, above all, worthy of a believer! For there is no woman whom we have believed to have borne (a child) when barren or old, when God so willed! which he is all the more likely to do if any one, by the presumption of this foresight of his own, provoke emulation on the part of God. ”

“ A plurality of such wives is pleasing to God. “But Christians concern themselves about posterity”—to whom there is no to-morrow! [5] Shall the servant of God yearn after heirs, who has disinherited himself from the world? And is it to be a reason for a man to repeat marriage, if from his first (marriage) he have no children? ”