Heloissa dehortabat me nuptiis. Nuptia non conveniunt cum philosophia  

"Tu ne pourrais t’occuper avec autant de soin d’une épouse et de la philosophie. Comment concilier les cours scolaires et les servantes, les bibliothèques et les berceaux, les livres et les quenouilles, les plumes et les fuseaux ? Celui qui doit s’absorber dans des méditations théologiques ou philosophiques peut-il supporter les cris des bébés, les berceuses des nourrices, la foule bruyante d’une domesticité mâle et femelle ? Comment tolérer les saletés que font constamment les petits enfants ? Les riches le peuvent, qui ont un palais ou une maison suffisamment grande pour qu’on puisse s’y isoler, dont l’opulence ne ressent pas les dépenses, qui ne sont pas quotidiennement crucifiés par les soucis matériels. Mais telle n’est pas la condition des intellectuels (philosophes) et ceux qui ont à se préoccuper d’argent et de soucis matériels ne peuvent s’adonner à leur métier de théologien ou de philosophe."--Heloise to Abelard, cited in Impressions littéraires by Louis Ratisbonne

Remember what St. Paul says, Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. If neither this great man, not the fathers of the church, can make you change your resolution, consider at least what your philosophers say of it. Socrates has proved, by many arguments, that a wife man ought not to marry. Tully put away his wife Terentia; and when Hircius offered him his sister in marriage he told him, he desired to be excused, because he could never bring himself to divide his thoughts between his books and his wife. In short, said she, how can the study of divinity and philosophy comport with the cries of children, the songs of nurses, and all the hurry of a family? What an odd fight will it be to see maids and scholars, desks and cradles, books and distaffs, pens and spindles, one among another? Those who are rich are never disturbed with the care and charges of housekeeping; but with you scholars it is far otherwise. He that will get an estate must mind the affairs of the world, and consequently is taken off from the study of divinity and philosophy."

--Heloissa dehortabat me nuptiis. Nuptia non conveniunt cum philosophia