The Pain and Sorrow of Evil Marriage

This modest volume brings together three short, humorous tracts from the early Tudor era that turn the solemn rite of marriage into a playground for satire. Printed by the pioneering London press of Wynkyn de Worde around 1535, the pamphlets survive with their wood‑cut title page, an illustration of a priest joining a couple’s hands. Their author adopts the voice of a freshly wed husband who laments the pains of too‑quick or too‑late nuptials, offering cheeky moral counsel in a lively, irregular rhyme scheme that mixes English with a sprinkling of French terms.

The first piece warns young men against rushing into the “sacrament,” while the second chastises those who tarry too long, and the longest, “The Pain and Sorowe of Evyll Marriage,” recounts the narrator’s own eight‑day ordeal, complete with witty complaints about his wife’s demands and the absurdity of early marital expectations. Throughout the verses the tone stays light‑hearted even as it probes genuine anxieties about chastity, progeny and domestic life. Readers will enjoy the blend of historical flavor, clever wordplay, and the glimpse it offers into the everyday concerns of 16th‑century Londoners.