Note 801 — Chapter III

Tertullian wrote a special treatise on the subject—De Monogamia. The injunction that a bishop should be the husband of one wife was regarded as a prohibition of a second marriage. Some of the Fathers, however, dissented from this view, as Hermes, (Pastor, ii, 4); Augustine, (De Bono Viduitatis, 12). On many pagan tombs occurs the word univiræ—“Once married.” There are several examples of wives in the prime of their youth and beauty devoting themselves to retirement on the death of their husbands, as the wives of Pompey, of Drusus, and of Lucan.