ABSTRACT
In his 1551 handbook, The Rule of Reason, scholar-politician Thomas Wilson uses as an example of a "dilemma" an age-old male problem — how to handle a beautiful woman. Significantly renaming it a "horned argument," he goes on to describe a dilemma:
when the reason consisteth of repugnant membres, so that whatsoever you graunt you fall into the snare, and take the foile. As if I shoulde aske, whether it ware better to marie a faire womanne, or a fowle. If you saie a faire, then aunswere I, that is not good, for thei communely saie, shee will bee commune, and then I maie saie, ye are touched with the horned argument if that saiying be true. If you saie it were good to marie a harde fauored woman, then I aunswere, she wilbe lothesome, and so ye fall into an inconuenience both waies. 1
