A servant maid in [5867]Aristaenetus loved her mistress’s minion, which when her dame perceived, furiosa aemulatione in a jealous humour she dragged her about the house by the hair of the head, and vexed her sore.  The wench cried out, [5868]"O mistress, fortune hath made my body your servant, but not my soul!” Affections are free, not to be commanded.  Moreover it may be to restrain their ambition, pride, and covetousness, to correct those hereditary diseases of a family, God in his just judgment assigns and permits such matches to be made.  For I am of Plato and [5869] Bodine’s mind, that families have their bounds and periods as well as kingdoms, beyond which for extent or continuance they shall not exceed, six or seven hundred years, as they there illustrate by a multitude of examples, and which Peucer and [5870]Melancthon approve, but in a perpetual tenor (as we see by many pedigrees of knights, gentlemen, yeomen) continue as they began, for many descents with little alteration.  Howsoever let them, I say, give something to youth, to love; they must not think they can fancy whom they appoint; [5871]_Amor enim non imperatur, affectus liber si quis alius et vices exigens_, this is a free passion, as Pliny said in a panegyric of his, and may not be forced:  Love craves liking, as the saying is, it requires mutual affections, a correspondency:  invito non datur nec aufertur, it may not be learned, Ovid himself cannot teach us how to love, Solomon describe, Apelles paint, or Helen express it.  They must not therefore compel or intrude; [5872]_quis enim_ (as Fabius urgeth) amare alieno animo potest? but consider withal the miseries of enforced marriages; take pity upon youth:  and such above the rest as have daughters to bestow, should be very careful and provident to marry them in due time.  Siracides cap. 7. vers. 25. calls it “a weighty matter to perform, so to marry a daughter to a man of understanding in due time:”  Virgines enim tempestive locandae, as [5873]Lemnius admonisheth, lib. 1. cap. 6. Virgins must be provided for in season, to prevent many diseases, of which [5874]Rodericus a Castro de morbis mulierum, lib. 2. cap. 3. and Lod.  Mercatus lib. 2. de mulier. affect, cap. 4, de melanch. virginum et viduarum, have both largely discoursed.  And therefore as well to avoid these feral maladies, ’tis good to get them husbands betimes, as to prevent some other gross inconveniences, and for a thing that I know besides; ubi nuptiarum tempus et aetas advenerit, as Chrysostom adviseth, let them not defer it; they perchance will marry themselves else, or do worse.  If Nevisanus the lawyer do not impose, they may do it by right:  for as he proves out of Curtius, and some other civilians, Sylvae, nup. lib. 2. numer. 30. [5875]"A maid past twenty-five years of age, against her parents’ consent may marry such a one as is unworthy of, and inferior to her, and her father by law must be compelled