Montaigne confesses the knot of marital duty lies chiefly in the will: some husbands have suffered cuckoldom not only without offence but with obligation to wives who pleased them, though public speech pretends otherwise.
Men should be discreet and not pry; jealousy is a malicious justice, and open speaking draws out secrets like wine and love. He speaks truth not as much as he would but as much as he dares, knowing Italy offers franker examples than France, where interdiction incites and forbidden fruit eager.
He likewise says we love a body without soul or sentiment when we love without consent and desire; some would rather lend their coach than themselves. Restraint and licence both miss the mark: Spaniards extreme in constraint, French in licence, and strict governesses fare no better than indulgent ones.
Italy furnishes his examples; handsome women abound, yet rare beauties match ours. He has seen a revenge that used the act itself to poison a lady; such horrors prove why moderation and household discretion should leave conduct partly to women's own judgment.
He advises abstinence yet, if the age will not endure it, at least modesty and discretion; Plato forbids facility to defendants in love, and rash wholesale surrender makes conquest worthless to both sides. Eagerness should be disguised; prompt surrender is a sign courts punish.
Gradation and delay honour women and prolong desire; one might dine on the steam of the roast. Once cupidity is sated, oaths and perjuries cease to matter, as Catullus shows; Thrasonides loved his passion more than his person and fed it with absence.
Hope without desire is worthless; entire possession kills mystery. Marriage is not really universal despite our speech; councils design stallion horses from those they least esteem, and borrowed lustre from books cannot replace living well.
Physicians and old men prescribe pleasures they no longer practice; he, having only ears' title left, keeps counsel among families and urges mutual abstinence where the age refuses it. Women who counterfeit affection sometimes catch themselves in the feint; public reception goes to pretended lovers while true ones lose place.
He closes with the pot mocking the kettle: those who condemn appetite often display the same heat under another name, and proverb beats sermon when both vessels burn.
Earlier he asked whether marriage or mistress' misfortune would wound more in a sound match; the will, not theatre, decides what husbands call injury or obligation. Discreet men do not pry; they live by arrangements speech never admits.
Borrowed science in love-talk disgusts him; living well matters more than learned seduction. Families differ, so one rule cannot curb maids throughout; mothers who were strictest saw no better outcomes than permissive houses.
Facility and promptness are forbidden defendants in Plato's court of love; disguise eagerness with art, for wholesale surrender cheapens both sides. Tibullus shows absent lovers in the arms that hold us; imagination feeds on what is missing.
He counsels men and women toward abstinence, yet if the age refuses, modesty and discretion remain. With only ears' authority left, he keeps to counsel, not command, and lets proverbial mockery finish what argument cannot cleanly end. Duty's knot remains in the will because speech, law, and appetite never stay in one honest line for long.
He repeats that jealousy punishes where discretion would heal, and that borrowed bookish lustre cannot teach what living bodies learn. Italian frankness supplies what French decorum hides; the essay ends mocking pots and kettles because no clean speaker survived the topic intact.
