35
In Leptis, a city of Libya, it was an ancient custom for the bride, the next day after the nuptial solemnity, to send home to the mother of the bridegroom to borrow a boiler, which she not only refused to lend, but sent back word that she had none to spare; to the end that the new married woman, having by that means tried the disposition of her mother-in-law, if afterwards she found her humor peevish and perverse, might with more patience brook her unkindness, as being no more than what she expected. Rather it becomes the daughter to avoid all occasions of distaste. For it is natural to some mothers to be jealous that the wife deprives her of that filial tenderness which she expects from her son. For which there is no better cure than for a wife so to contrive the gaining of her husband’s love as not to lessen or withdraw his affection from his mother.
36
It is generally observed that mothers are fondest of their sons, as expecting from them their future assistance when they grow into years, and that fathers are kindest to their daughters, as standing most in need of their paternal succor. And perhaps, out of that mutual respect which the man and his wife bear one to another, either of them would seem to carry greater affection for that which is proper and familiar to the other. But this pleasing controversy is easily reconciled. For it becomes a woman to show the choicest of her respects and to be more complaisant to the kindred of her husband than to her own to make her complaints to them, and conceal her discontents from her own relations. For the trust which she reposes in them causes them to confide in her, and her esteem of them increases their respects to her.
