This follows after the choice is made; moreover, it is honourable and proper for men to court and propose to women, and the reverse is not. If women were to court and propose, they would not only be exposed to slander, but after proposing they would be regarded as cheapened, or after marriage as lustful, women there was no living with except in coldness and loathing. This therefore turns marriages into tragic spectacles. Wives even make a virtue of, as it were, surrendering overcome by the pressure of men's demands. Can anyone fail to foresee that, if women courted men, they would rarely be accepted, being either angrily rebuffed or seduced to wantonness, and they would also prostitute their modesty? Moreover, men have no inborn sexual love, as was convincingly proved above; and without that love, there is no inner pleasantness in life. In order, therefore, to raise the level of their life by that love, it is the duty of men to flatter women, politely, assiduously and humbly approaching them and begging them to add the sweetness they can bring to their suitors' lives. The loveliness of face, figure and behaviour that sex possesses as compared with men comes as an additional bonus.