[65] Question 65. Why doth not a man lie at first with a bride in the light, but when it is dark?
Solution. Is it not for modesty’s sake, for at the first congress he looks upon her as a stranger to him? Or is it that he may be inured to go into his own wife with modesty? Or, as Solon hath written, “Let the bride go into the bed-chamber gnawing a quince, that the first salutation be not harsh and ungrateful.” So did the Roman lawgiver command that, if there should be any thing absurd and unpleasant in her body, she should hide it? Or was it intended to cast infamy upon the unlawful use of venery by causing that the lawful should have certain signs of modesty attending it?