On the benefits of celibacy and late marriage

While reading on my labor class topic of this week, the economic role of women in pre-modern Europe I bumped into this lovely poem written by Anna Bijns in the fifteenth century! It is on the benefits of celibacy and late marriage in the North Sea region:

How good to be a woman, how much better to be a man!

Maidens and wenches, remember the lesson you're about to hear

Don't hurtle yourself into marriage far too soon.

The saying goes: 'where is your spouse? Where's your honour?'

But one who earns her board and clothes

Shouldn't scurry to suffer a man's rod...

Though wedlock I do not decry;

Unyoked is best! Happy the woman without a man.