Marriage is a solemn and religious tie, and therefore the pleasure we extract from it should be a sober and serious delight, and mixed with a certain kind of gravity; it should be a sort of discreet and conscientious pleasure. And seeing that the chief end of it is generation, some make a question, whether when men are out of hopes as when they are superannuated or already with child, it be lawful to embrace our wives. It is homicide, according to Plato.Certain nations (the Mohammedan, amongst others) abominate all conjunction with women with child, others also, with those who are in their courses. Zenobia would never admit her husband for more than one encounter, after which she left him to his own swing for the whole time of her conception, and not till after that would again receive him: a brave and generous example of conjugal continence.
婚姻是一种庄严的、虔诚的结合,因此,从婚姻中获得的快乐应该是有节制的、稳重的,并带有几分平淡的,人们更应该谨慎而认真地对待婚姻。因为婚姻的主要目的是繁衍后代,于是有人提出疑问:假如我们不能生育,假如妻子过了生育年龄或已经有了孩子,我们是否还应该将妻子揽人怀中呢?按照柏拉图的说法,这与行凶杀人毫无二致。有些民族的人(尤其是穆斯林)十分痛恨与怀孕的女子同房的行为，也有一些民族反对与在经期中的女子同房。芝诺比阿呐为了生儿育女只与自己的丈夫同房一次，然后在整个怀孕期间任由他去拈花惹草,直到生下孩子之后,才会再次与他同房。这是伟大的、崇高的、有节制的婚姻典范。
The kings of Persia were wont to invite their wives to the beginning of their festivals; but when the wine began to work in good earnest, and that they were to give the reins to pleasure, they sent them back to their private apartments, that they might not participate in their immoderate lust, sending for other women in their stead, with whom they were not obliged to so great a decorum of respect. All pleasures and all sorts of gratifications are not properly and fitly conferred upon all sorts of persons. Epaminondas had committed to prison a young man for certain debauches; for whom Pelopidas mediated, that at his request he might be set at liberty, which paminondas denied to him, but granted it at the first word to a wench of his, that made the same intercession; saying, that it was a gratification fit for such a one as she, but not for a captain.
波斯的国王们常常在宴会开始时叫他们的后妃陪同参加，但当他们的酒瘾涌上,想要开怀畅饮的时候,他们就派人把后妃们送回后官,以免她们和自己一起酒后乱性,然后再去招来无需如此以礼相待的女人来作陪。快乐并非人人可享,满足感也不能人皆有之。伊巴密浓达以放荡的罪名下令囚禁了一个青年,派洛皮德为他求情,但遭到了拒绝,然而,当派洛皮德家的一位姑娘来求情时,刚一开口,伊巴密浓达就允诺了，,还声称这类事能够成功的只有女子,而非将领。
AElius Verus, the emperor, answered his wife, who reproached him with his love to other women, that he did it upon a conscientious account, forasmuch as marriage was a name of honour and dignity, not of wanton and lascivious desire; and our ecclesiastical history preserves the memory of that woman in great veneration, who parted from her husband because she would not comply with his indecent and inordinate desires. In fine, there is no pleasure so just and lawful, where intemperance and excess are not to be condemned. But, to speak the truth, is not man a most miserable creature the while? It is scarce, by his natural condition, in his power to taste one pleasure pure and entire; and yet must he be contriving doctrines and precepts to curtail that little he has; he is not yet wretched enough, unless by art and study he augment his own misery:
罗马皇帝埃利乌斯・维善斯的皇后责备他不该宠幸别的女人,他回答说，他之所以这样做,是本着认真负责的目的,因为婚姻代表着荣脊与尊严，不是指荒唐与纵欲。我们的经文中曾经记载过这样一位令人尊敬的妻子,她为了不助长丈夫的纵欲而与他分居。总之,任何正当的快乐，一旦放纵和过度,都应受到谴责。然而，说实话,人难道不是最可悲的动物吗?由于天性使然,他几乎无法做到自始至终仅仅享受一种快乐,可是他又必须制定一些教条和规则去缩减原本就少得可怜的快乐。如果不是刻意地使自己处于更加悲惨的境地的话，人本来不是十分可悲的。
We atificially augment the wretchedness of fortune.
---Properitius
Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent, when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favourably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life, to alleviate the sense of them. Had I ruled the roast, I should have taken another and more natural course, which, to say the truth, is both commodious and holy, and should, peradventure, have been able to have limited it too; notwithstanding that both our spiritual and corporal physicians, as by compact between themselves, can find no other way to cure, nor other remedy for the infirmities of the body and the soul, than by misery and pain. To this end, watchings, fastings, hair-shirts, remote and solitary banishments, perpetual imprisonments, whips and other afflictions, have been introduced amongst men: but so, that they should carry a sting with them, and be real afflictions indeed.
我们在人为地使自己的命运变得更加悲惨。
——普洛佩提乌斯
人的智慧在滥用自己的能力,它在数量上和美好程度上减少着我们本应享有的快乐。同时,它又刻意制造出一些假象,来美化和掩饰丑恶,使我们对丑恶的感觉变得麻木迟钝。如果万事由我做主的话，我会采用另外一种更为自然的做法,坦白地说,那种做法将是既适当又神圣的,也许还能使我有足够的力量对这种智慧合理运用。尽管治疔我们身心疾病的医生们仿佛经过了共同的努力研究,但他们不但没有找到任何方法和药物来医治我们的身体和心灵,反而制造了许多不幸和痛苦。到最后,人类发明了许多制造痛苦的手段，例如监视、禁食、自残、放逐、隔离、长期关押、鞭打等等,这样做的结果，无非是给自身带来了许多巨大的难以承受的痛苦。
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