217. (viii) Wives love the bonds of marriage provided their husbands do.

This follows from what was said in the last paragraph. Moreover, wives have an innate desire to be and to be called wives. They regard this title as prestigious and honourable, so that they love the bonds of marriage. Since chaste wives want to be wives not merely in name, but in fact, something which is the result of an ever closer tie with their husbands, they love the bonds of marriage as a means of strengthening this compact; and this they do the more, the more their husbands love them in return, or, what is much the same, the more the men love those bonds.