1393: France
ignorance is bliss
Husbands ought to hide and conceal the fol
lies of their wives and lovingly protect them
from future mistakes, as did an honorable
man of Venice.
in that city there was a married couple with
three children. as the wife lay on her death
bed, she confessed, among other things, that
one of the children was not her husband’s. The
confessor at length told her that he would seek
advice about how to counsel her and return.
This confessor went to the doctor who was
looking after her and asked the nature of her
illness. The doctor said that she would not be
able to recover from it. Then the confessor went
to her and told her that he didn’t see how god
would give her salvation unless she begged
her husband for forgiveness for the wrong she
had done him. she summoned her husband,
had everyone removed from the room except
her mother and her confessor, who placed her,
and held her, on her knees on the bed; and
before her husband, with folded hands, hum
bly begged pardon for having sinned in the
law of his marriage and having had one of her
children with another man. she would have
said more, but her husband cried out, “stop!
stop! stop! don’t say anything else.” Then
he kissed her and pardoned her, saying, “say
no more. don’t tell me or anyone else which
of your children it is, for i want to love each
as much as the other—so equally that you
will not be blamed during your lifetime or
after your death. For through your blame, i
will be dishonored, and because of it, your
children, and others through them—that is,
our relations—will receive vile and everlast
ing reproach. Therefore, don’t say anything.
i don’t want to know any more. so that no
one can ever say that i do wrong by the other
two, whichever it is, i will give him in my
lifetime what would come to him under our
laws of succession.”
From a domestic instruction manual. The original
manuscript, now lost, was written by an elderly
Parisian man after marrying a fifteen-year-old
girl, describing the basic tenets of a good wife’s
duties—religious, societal, domestic, moral. Among
the advice he offers is, “If you want to keep roses
in winter, take from the rosebush little buds that
are not in full bloom”; “In summer take care that
there are no fleas in your room or in your bed”; and
more generally, “You must keep yourself continent
and live chastely.”
ranged. Thereupon Yukiko objected, and was not
to be moved. There was nothing she really found
fault with in the man’s appearance and manner,
she said, but he was so countrified. although he
was no doubt as admirable as Tatsuo said, one
could see that he was quite unintelligent. He had
fallen ill on graduating from middle school, it was
said, and had been unable to go further, but Yukiko
could not help suspecting that dullness somehow
figured in the matter. Herself graduated from a
ladies’ seminary with honors in english, Yukiko
knew that she would be quite unable to respect
the man. and besides, no matter how sizable a
fortune he was heir to, and no matter how secure
a future he could offer, the thought of living in
a provincial city like Toyohashi was unbearably
dreary. Yukiko had sachiko’s support—surely,
said sachiko, they could not think of sending the
poor girl off to such a place. although Tatsuo for
his part admitted that Yukiko was not unintel
lectual, he had concluded that, for a thoroughly
Japanese girl whose reserve was extreme, a quiet,
secure life in a provincial city, free from needless
excitement, would be ideal, and it had not oc
curred to him that the lady herself might object.
but the shy, introverted Yukiko, unable though
she was to open her mouth before strangers, had
a hard core that was difficult to reconcile with
her apparent docility. Tatsuo discovered that his
sisterinlaw was sometimes not as submissive as
she might be.
as for Yukiko, it would have been well if
she had made her position clear at once. instead
she persisted in giving vague answers that could
be taken to mean almost anything, and when the
crucial moment came, it was not to Tatsuo or
her older sister that she revealed her feelings, but
rather to sachiko. That was perhaps in part be
cause she found it hard to speak to the almost too
enthusiastic Tatsuo, but it was one of Yukiko’s
shortcomings that she seldom said enough to
make herself understood. Tatsuo had concluded
that Yukiko was not hostile to the proposal,
and the prospective bridegroom became even
more enthusiastic after the meeting; he made
it known that he must have Yukiko and no one
else. The negotiations had advanced to a point,
