7. And it is no small patience which the natural imbecility of the female sex requireth you to prepare. Except it be very few that are patient and manlike, women are commonly of potent fantasies, and tender, passionate, impatient spirits, easily cast into anger, or jealousy, or discontent; and of weak understandings, and therefore unable to reform themselves. They are betwixt a man and a child: some few have more of the man, and many have more of the child; but most are but in a middle state. Weakness naturally inclineth persons to be froward and hard to please; as we see in children, old people, and sick persons. They are like a sore, distempered body; you can scarce touch them but you hurt them. With too many you can scarce tell how to speak or look but you displease them. If you should be very well versed in the art of pleasing, and set yourselves to it with all your care, as if you made it your very business and had little else to do, yet it would put you hard to it, to please some weak, impatient persons, if not quite surpass your ability and skill. And the more you love them, the more grievous it will be, to see them still in discontents, weary of their condition, and to hear the clamorous expressions of their disquiet minds. Nay, the very multitude of words that very many are addicted to, doth make some men's lives a continual burden to them. Mark what the Scripture saith: Prov. xxi. 9, "It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house." Ver. 19, "It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman." So chap. xxv. 24, and xxvii. 15, "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike." Eccles. vii. 28, "One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found." 8. And there is such a meeting of faults and imperfections on both sides, that maketh it much the harder to bear the infirmities of others aright. If one party only were froward and impatient, the stedfastness of the other might make it the more tolerable; but we are all sick, in some measure, of the same disease. And when weakness meeteth with weakness, and pride with pride, and passion with passion, it exasperateth the disease and doubleth the suffering. And our corruption is such, that though our intent be to help one another in our duties, yet we are apter far to stir up one another's distempers.