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Knowing How To Choose a Good Wife[a]

26 A woman will accept any man as a husband,
    yet one daughter will be preferable to another.
27 A woman’s beauty causes a man’s face to light up,
    and there is nothing a man desires more.
28 And if, perchance, her speech is kind and gentle,
    her husband is the most fortunate of men.

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Footnotes

  1. Wisdom of Ben Sira 36:26 Certainly, the situation between men and women at this epoch is far from one of equality. Therefore, the elevated idea that the author—so distrustful at times—has of the good wife is most relevant (see Sir 26:1-4, 15-18).