Hostages to Fortune

"HE THAT hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune"

I always took that to mean that when we get married and have children, we have given our hostages to Fortune and that we are at Fortune's mercy for our safety and peace of mind.

Last week, the phrase kept running through my head because my son had a head injury and I had to take him to QE Hospital Emergency room. It was a mild concussion and he is recovering slowly. Thank goodness it is the end of term, so he's not missed much work.

Then I look at what I just wrote, and think, what am I saying?!!! Thank goodness it looks like he will recover and be neurologically normal.

Then the other sweet hostage in Fortune's care. My daughter, she got a bad cold and was hacking and hacking. It turned out to be bacterial infection, so she's on antibiotics and is recovering as well.

Then I decided to look up the original quote, by Francis Bacon(1561-1626). It turns out it his from his essay "Of Marriage and Single Life".

Well, when I read the whole thing, I find at first I have some visceral disagreement
that a spouse and children are "are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief." Y
- Yes, maybe, but what do you mean by "great" Francis, and if the "great enterprises are mischievous, then better they were not undertaken, hmmm? And what about many people with spouses and children who have done "great things" (thinking quickly to try and find some examples...).

Later in the essay, he writes "Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses.'
- Yuck, Francis, that's so sexist, so 17th century. But yes, there is a degree of truth in it too.
So then, Francis is a great writer, because almost 400 years after he is dead, I want to talk to him about what he says. So, I suppose I will read more, listen to him and enjoy him, and argue and agree and disagree, as though we were having a drink together.


Then I read the previous essay for the first time, "Of Parents and Children"
and see:

"THE joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter.They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death"

- yes