Do Not Overload Marriage with Wealth

Let us not therefore seek how to possess more money, but how to possess peace and enjoy happiness. Marriage exists not so that we fill our homes with war and conflict, not so that we have disputes and rivalries, turn against one another, and make life unlivable. It exists so that we may receive help, have a harbor and refuge, find comfort from the troubles that press upon us, and speak with our wife in joy.

How many wealthy men have married wealthy women and increased their property, yet destroyed their happiness and harmony, filling the dinner table with daily quarrels and disputes? And how many poor men have married women poorer than themselves and enjoy peace, seeing the sunlight with great gladness? Meanwhile some rich men, surrounded on every side by luxury, have because of their wives prayed to die and escape the present life. Wealth is therefore of no use if we do not obtain a good soul.

And why speak only about peace and harmony? Marrying for a large fortune has often damaged a man even in the possession of money itself. A man may commit all his property in relation to the dowry, then, if his wife dies prematurely, be compelled by her family to repay the whole dowry. Like someone suffering shipwreck at sea who barely saves his own body, after many disputes, quarrels, insults, and court cases he barely escapes with his body free.

Greedy merchants sometimes fill a ship with countless loads and place on it more weight than it can bear, sinking the vessel and losing everything. So too men who seek excessively wealthy marriages, thinking that through a wife they will surround themselves with still greater property, may lose even what they already possess. Just as one sudden wave can sink an overloaded ship, so an untimely death can suddenly take away the wife and with her all the wealth the husband thought he had gained.