ABSTRACT
This chapter consists of a series of maxims of advice to young men on the dangers and snares of women. It demonstrates that distrustful, jealous and inconstant women had existed throughout time. The chapter shows the merits of marriage for men, advising young men to proceed with caution in their choice of a suitable wife. A blinkered search for change would, however, be an inappropriate way to approach early modern ideas about women. The transition from Irish to English law was the most profound change implemented by the Tudor and Stuart regimes in Ireland. The first attempt to introduce reform of the marriage laws in England was the 1753 Hardwicke Act. Christian ideology prevailed in Ireland in 1500 just as it did in 1800 and Christian doctrine on women remained largely the same throughout the three-hundred-year period. Within the Catholic Church, celibate male clergy continued to portray women as a source of temptation and potential entrapment.
