16 BACON'S ESSAYS 



VIII 

 OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE 



HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to 

 fortune ; for they are impediments to great enterprises, 

 either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and 

 of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the 

 unmarried or childless men ; which both in affection and 

 means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were 

 great reason that those that have children should have 

 greatest care of future times ; unto which they know they 

 must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who 

 though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end 

 with themselves, and account future times impertinences. 

 Nay, there are some other that account wife and children 

 but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish 

 rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, 

 because they may be thought so much the richer. For 

 perhaps they have heard some talk, ' Such an one is a great 

 rich man/ and another except to it, ' Yea, but he hath a 

 great charge of children ' ; as if it were an abatement to 

 his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is 

 liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous 

 minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will 

 go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and 

 shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, 

 best servants ; but not always best subjects ; for they are 

 light to run away ; and almost all fugitives are of that 

 condition. 



A single life doth well with churchmen ; for charity 

 will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a 

 pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if 

 they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five 

 times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals 

 commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their 

 wives and children ; and I think the despising of marriage 

 amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. 

 Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of 



