Cuckoldry

“ OME cuckolds there be which are good-natured and which of their own impulse do invite themselves to this feast of cuckoldry. Thus I have known some who would say to their wives, "Such and such an one is in love with you; I know him well, and he often cometh to visit us, but 'tis for love of you, my pretty. Give him good welcome; he can do us much pleasure, his acquaintance may advantage us greatly."
Others again will say to their wives' admirers, "My wife is in love with you, and right fond of you. ”

“ Herein was the case different with a very fair lady I have heard tell of, for that she had lost the half of her affair by misadventure, her husband having, so they said, given her the pox which had eaten it away for her.
Truly the favours and benefits of the great may well shake the most chaste hearts, and are cause of many and many a cuckoldry. ”

“ A good reason why women are well advised to seek the help and commodity of good and handsome stallions, to the end they may produce good offspring. Yet I have seen on the other hand some which had handsome husbands, but did nevertheless call in the aid of ill-favoured lovers and base stallions, which did beget ugly and evil-conditioned descendants.
This indeed is one of the most signal commodities and incommodities of the state of cuckoldry.
I once knew a great lady of society which had an exceeding ill-favoured and ill-bred husband ”

“ They seem engaged in their proper element. They break through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. They have got out of Christendom into the land—what shall I call it?—of cuckoldry—the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. ”

“ Seeing ’tis the ladies have laid the foundation of all cuckoldry, and how ’tis they which do make all men cuckolds, I have thought it good to include this First Discourse in my present Book of Fair Ladies,—albeit that I shall have occasion to speak therein as much of men as of women. I know right well I am taking up a great work, and one I should never get done withal, if that I did insist on full completeness of the same. For of a truth not all the paper in the Records Office of Paris would hold in writing the half of the histories of folk in this case, whether women or men. ”

“ Poor silly creatures surely herein, albeit wise and gallant men enough in other matters, to suppose that cuckoldry did never abide in their own houses, at their hearths and in their closets and bedchambers, just as readily, or mayhap more so, seeing the easy opportunities, as in the Royal Palaces and the great Royal towns! ”

“ Verily such husbands are odious,—so to see their fair wives lying by their side, sickening and dying a slow death day after day, and do deserve death far worse than their dames. Others again do them to death between four walls, in perpetual emprisonment. Of such we have instances in sundry ancient Chronicles of France; and myself have known a great nobleman of France, the which did thus slay his wife, who was a very fair and honourable lady,—and this by judgement of the Courts, taking an infatuate delight in having by this means his cuckoldry publicly declared. ”

“ H. Indeed my heart, I believe the first part of your story, but my head does ache a little as well as my heart; I dread the horns, I would not be a cuckold for all the world, to be pointed at by every one to have a skimington rode for me, and a thousand other reproaches which are unsufferable
W. Tush, foolishman, can I make you a cuckold of myself? and were it so, you ought to bear all afflictions with christian patience; the old proverb tells you, that all cuckolds go to heaven. The world as bad as is is, will say 'tis none of your fault, but your wife's. ”

“ SCENE II.—Horner's Lodging. Horner and Quack.
Quack. What, all alone? not so much as one of your cuckolds here, nor one of their wives! They use to take their turns with you, as if they were to watch you.
Horn. Yes, it often happens that a cuckold is but his wife's spy, and is more upon family duty when he is with her gallant abroad, hindering his pleasure, than when he is at home with her playing the gallant. But the hardest duty a married woman imposes upon a lover is keeping her husband company always. ”

“ A pox! keeping a cuckold company, after you have had his wife, is as tiresome as the company of a country squire to a witty fellow of the town, when he has got all his money.
Quack. And as at first a man makes a friend of the husband to get the wife, so at last you are fain to fall out with the wife to be rid of the husband.
Horn. Ay, most cuckold-makers are true courtiers; when once a poor man has cracked his credit for 'em, they can't abide to come near him.
Quack. But at first, to draw him in, are so sweet, so kind, so dear! just as you are to Pinchwife. ”

“ On the eve of her bridal, her husband seeing her all sad and pensive, asked her what ailed her; and she did answer him angrily, "You would never believe me, and be persuaded to leave off your pursuit of me. You know what I have always said, that if ever I were so unfortunate as to become your wife, I would make you cuckold. And I swear I will do so, and keep my word to you." She was in no wise dainty about saying the same before sundry of her lady companions and male admirers. ”

“ He did further say he could always wed plenty of women every year, speaking of marriage as an hidden prostitution of a man's repute and liberty, ordained by a specious law. Moreover that the worst of it was, this, as myself also do see and have noted to be the case, that the more part, nay! all, of them that have thus taken delight in making other folks cuckold, when themselves come to wed, infallibly do they fall into the married, I mean the cuckolded, state. ”

“ Then is there another sort of cuckolds, as to whom doth arise the following question, to wit,—whether if a man hath had full enjoyment of a woman during the lifetime of her cuckold husband, and this latter die, and the lover do afterward marry the widow in second nuptials, he ought to wear the name and title of cuckold,—a case I have heard debated in regard to several, and these great men. ”

“ Quoth she to me,—and sore enraged for wounded pride was she, For she in sooth had bidden me to that which might not be,—
“An if thou swive me not forthright, as one should swive his wife, If thou be made a cuckold straight, reproach it not to me.
Meseems thy yard is made of wax, for very flaccidness; For when I rub it with my hand, it softens instantly.”
And quoth he likewise of his yard:
I have a yard that sleeps on base and shameful wise, Whenever one I love with my desire complies ”

“ Another crys, Why we know not what they mean, when the Man takes a Woman off the Stage, and another is thereby cuckolded; is that any more than you see in the most Celebrated of your Plays? as the City Politicks, the Lady Mayoress, and the Old Lawyers Wife, who goes with a Man she never saw before, and comes out again the joyfull’st Woman alive, for having made her Husband a Cuckold with such Dexterity, and yet I see nothing unnatural nor obscene: ‘tis proper for the Characters. ”

“ Yet, what is this practice of exhibiting a cuckold in a ridiculous point of view, but an apology for adultery, as if it was intended to teach women that their charms are not formed for the possession of one man only? Alas! it is but too true that some of the French belles need no encouragement to infidelity: too soon all scruple is stifled in their bosom ”

“ Cuckold? The devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass; he will trust his wife, he will not be jealous. I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself. Then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. God be praised for my jealousy! ”

“ An old Gentleman who had married a fine young Lady, and being terribly afraid of Cuckoldom, took her to Task one Day, and ask'd her, if she had considered what a crying Sin it was in a Woman to cuckold her Husband? ”

“ Thou hast the metoposcopy and physiognomy of a cuckold,--I say, of a notorious and infamous cuckold. With this, casting an eye upon Panurge's right hand in all the parts thereof, he said, This rugged draught which I see here, just under the mount of Jove, was never yet but in the hand of a cuckold. Afterwards, he with a white lead pen swiftly and hastily drew a certain number of diverse kinds of points, which by rules of geomancy he coupled and joined together; then said: Truth itself is not truer than that it is certain thou wilt be a cuckold a little after thy marriage. ”

“ The character of cuckold is indelible: who once has it carries it to his grave; the punishment proclaims it more than the fault. It is to much purpose to drag out of obscurity and doubt our private misfortunes, thence to expose them on tragic scaffolds; and misfortunes that only hurt us by being known; for we say a good wife or a happy marriage, not that they are really so, but because no one says to the contrary. ”

“ Nor yet will she be changed into a chough, but will steal from you, chiefly in the night, as is the nature of that thievish bird. Hereby may you perceive your dreams to be in every jot conform and agreeable to the Virgilian lots. A cuckold you will be, beaten and robbed. Then cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells the truth; upon my conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold--an honest one, I warrant thee. O the brave horns that will be borne by thee! ”

“ If Jove be a cuckold, Juno is a whore. This follows by the figure metalepsis: as to call a child, in the presence of his father and mother, a bastard, or whore's son, is tacitly and underboard no less than if he had said openly the father is a cuckold and his wife a punk. Let our discourse come nearer to the purpose. The horns that my wife did make me are horns of abundance, planted and grafted in my head for the increase and shooting up of all good things. ”

“ If the husband is in haste, if he does not wait for the wife to become ready to meet him; if he forces his large, hard penis into the vagina before either is fully ready for such union—when there is no prostatic fluid on its glans, and the vagina is shrunken and its walls are dry—if coitus is engaged in in this way, it is perfectly easy to see that only disaster can result! The woman is hurt, sometimes most cruelly, and the man in reality gets only a beastly gratification from the act. Of all bad things in all the world, such manner of coition is the worst! ”

“ But, landlady, the word cuckold will bear no action in the law, except you could prove your husband prejudiced by it. Have any of his customers forsook him for't? Or any mercer refused to trust him the less, for my calling him so?
Franc. Nay, I know not for the mercers; perhaps the citizens may take it for no slander among one another, as they say: but for the gentlemen—
Lov. Will, have they forsaken thee upon it?
Bib. No, I assure you, sir.
Lov. No, I warrant 'em: A cuckold has the signification of an honest well-meaning citizen; one, that is not given to jealousies or suspicions ”

“ What a thing is a cuckold, that every fool can make him ridiculous!— [Aloud.] Well, sir—but let me advise you, now you are come to be concerned, because you suspect the danger, not to neglect the means to prevent it, especially when the greatest share of the malady will light upon your own head, for
Hows'e'er the kind wife's belly comes to swell,
The husband breeds for her, and first is ill. ”

“ It often happens that a husband continually forces his wife to coitus, even during menstruation. We have mentioned already the case of an old peasant of seventy who thus abused his poor old wife. In such cases conjugal infidelity very commonly occurs. The cynicism of such individuals may go so far that they have intercourse with prostitutes or servants in the presence of their wives, or even abuse their own children. The wife behaves in these cases in different ways according to her character. Many tolerate everything and do not complain, for the sake of their children ”

“ Every direct contact, even with the clitoris, every attempt at coitus [when the feminine organism is not aroused] , exercises a painful sensation, an instinctive repulsion, a feeling of disgust and aversion. Any man, any husband, who is ignorant of this fact, is ridiculous and contemptible. Any man, any husband, who, knowing it, dares to disregard it, has committed an outrage.... In the final combination of man and woman, the positive element, the husband, has the initiative and the responsibility for the conjugal life. ”

“ Frequently enough, on the bridal night, the man proceeds with such violence in his assault on the virgin reproductive organs of his newly-wedded wife, that we must actually speak of him as ravishing an ignorant and timid girl. Later, when the stimulus of novelty has passed away, the husband often performs intercourse in a manner more calculated to awaken his wife’s sexual desires, but in seeking his own lordly gratification and obtaining it he is still apt to leave out of the reckoning the need for effecting coitus in such a way as will give complete satisfaction also to his wife. ”

“ Making you a cuckold; 'tis that they all do, as soon as they can.
Spark. What, the wedding-day? no, a wife that designs to make a cully of her husband will be sure to let him win the first stake of love, by the world. But come, they stay dinner for us: come, I'll lead down our Margery.
Pinch. No—sir, go, we'll follow you. ”