A trewe servant dooth moore diligence
Thy good to kepe than thyn owene wyf.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Merchant’s Tale. The Merchant quotes Theophrastus, author of The Golden Age of Marriage, to back up his own misogynist views. He says that a good servant will guard your goods better than your own wife. The Theophrastus tract, which satirically attacks marriage, is now lost but was excerpted by Saint Jerome in his Letter Against Jovinian, an important source for Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale and Wife of Bath.