After I have told you that he was a handsome man and a good sportsman, I have indeed said all; and unhappy was I—like other young people of our sex, I chose him for being a handsome, jolly fellow, as I have said—for he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught creature as any woman could ever desire to be coupled with. And here I must take the liberty, whatever I have to reproach myself with in my after conduct, to turn to my fellow creatures, the young ladies of this country, and speak to them by way of precaution. If you have any regard to your future happiness, any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving your fortunes or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies, marry a fool. Any husband rather than a fool. With some other husbands you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with another husband you may, I say, be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he would, he cannot make you easy, everything he does is so awkward, everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot but be surfeited and sick of him twenty times a day. What is more shocking than for a woman to bring a handsome, comely fellow of a husband into company and then be obliged to blush for him every time she hears him speak; to hear other gentlemen talk sense and he able to say nothing, and so look like a fool; or, which is worse, hear him talk nonsense and be laughed at for a fool?
In the next place, there are so many sorts of fools, such an infinite variety of fools, and so hard it is to know the worst of the kind, that I am obliged to say, no fool, ladies, at all, no kind of fool; whether a mad fool or a sober fool, a wise fool or a silly fool, take anything but a fool; nay, be anything, be even an old maid, the worst of nature’s curses, rather than take up with a fool.
[Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress, Daniel Defoe]
Okay, before the 2 male readers of my blog hurl "you hate men" accusations at me, I'll state that I don't. Have, in fact, earned the ire of females by stating that men are better at everything. Basically. (Don't stone me!)
She's making a distinct distinction between men and fool-men. I don't associate with the latter. Well, in my mind I don't, ahahaha. Oh, wait, that's a little hypocritical, coming from a fool... >:D
Anyway, it's marvelous advice -- so marvelous, it's probably even Biblical:
Never, ladies, marry a fool.
Selah.
(P.S. That piece was written by a man. Something tells me he knows nothing of what a woman will do when she sees something in a man that others simply don't see. That fool might not be such a fool after all, in the right hands. But how would he know...)
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