I once heard some men having a charming debate about the female sex, whether any woman who constantly loves her own beauty, that is, who loves herself for her looks, can love her husband. They began by agreeing that women have two kinds of beauty, one natural, that of the face and body, and the other spiritual, that of love and behaviour. They also agreed that these two kinds of beauty are very often separate in the natural world, but they are always combined in the spiritual world; for in that world beauty is the form taken by love and behaviour. After death therefore it very often happens that ugly women become models of beauty, and beautiful women models of ugliness.

[2] While the men were discussing this, some wives came along who said, 'Allow us to take part in your debate, because you are discussing what your knowledge tells you, but we what our experience tells us. Moreover, you know so little about wives' love it is scarcely anything. Don't you know it is the prudence of wives' wisdom that makes them hide away in the depth of their chests or in the centre of their hearts the love they have for their husbands?'

The debate began, and the men's first conclusion was that every woman wants to be seen as beautiful in face and in behaviour, because she is by birth an affection for love, and the form of this affection is beauty. A woman therefore who does not want to be beautiful is one who does not want to love and be loved, so she is no true woman.

The wives' comment on this was, 'A woman's beauty resides in her gentle tenderness, and so in her exquisite powers of feeling. This is the source of a woman's love for a man, and a man's love for a woman. Perhaps you do not understand this.'

[3] The men's second conclusion was that before she is married a woman wants to be beautiful for men, but after marriage, provided she is chaste, for her husband alone, and not for men generally.

The wives' comment was, 'After a husband has tasted his wife's natural beauty, he no longer sees her, but rather her spiritual beauty, and this makes him love her in return; so he recalls her natural beauty, but in a different guise.'

[4] The third conclusion from their debate was that if a woman after marriage wants to be seen to be beautiful, just as she was before, she loves men and not a husband, 'because a woman who loves herself for her beauty continually wants her beauty to be tasted; and since, as you have said, this is no longer obvious to her husband, she wants it to be tasted by the men whose eyes fall on her. Obviously she has a love of the other sex, not one of the other sex.'

This silenced the wives, but they went on murmuring, 'Is there any woman so devoid of vanity as not to want to be seen as beautiful to men too, as well as being so to her one and only husband?'

This was heard by some wives from heaven, who were beautiful because they were heavenly affections; and they confirmed the men's conclusions, but added, 'Let them just love their beauty and the way they adorn it for their husbands' sake and from their point of view.'