Three Women Who Loved Truly — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne says good wives are not found by the dozen, and our age publishes devotion only after husbands die, which proves they never loved them living. He prefers the living household to widow theatrics and judges marriage by years of gentle companionship, not funeral tears.

He offers three austere exceptions: a mean woman who tied herself to her husband and drowned with him; Arria, who stabbed herself first and told Paetus it is not painful; and Paulina, who opened her veins beside Seneca until Nero ordered her spared.

Seneca later argued he prolonged his life for Paulina's sake as stoically as others die for glory. Montaigne closes that enforced living in magnanimity can weigh as heavily as the courage to die together.