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And in Germany they give the same advice, and also assign a reason for it, saying, "Marry over the mixon, and you will know who and what she is."ssss1 The same principle is expressed in different forms in other languages, e.g., "Your wife and your nag get from a neighbour" (Italian).ssss1 "He that goes far to marry goes to be deceived or to deceive" (Spanish).ssss1 The politic Lord Burleigh seems to have regarded this "going far to deceive" as a very proper thing to be done for the advancement of a man's fortune. In his "Advice to his Son" he says, "If thy estate be good, match near home and at leisure; if weak, far off and quickly." There is an ugly cunning in that word quickly. Burleigh's advice is quite in the spirit of the French fortune hunter's adage, "In marriage cheat who can."ssss1

He that loseth his wife and sixpence hath lost a tester.

"He that loseth his wife and a farthing hath a great loss of his farthing" (Italian).ssss1 In Italy also, and in Portugal, it is said that "Grief for a dead wife lasts to the door;"ssss1 and even in Provence, the land of the troubadours, they have a rhyme to this effect:—