23
The stomach will take any food,
yet one food is better than another.
24
As the palate tastes the kinds of game,
so an intelligent mind detects false words.
25
A perverse mind will cause grief,
but a person with experience will pay him back.
26
A woman will accept any man as a husband,
but one girl is preferable to another.
27
A woman's beauty lights up a man's face,
and there is nothing he desires more.
28
If kindness and humility mark her speech,
her husband is more fortunate than other men.
29
He who acquires a wife gets his best possession, 1
a helper fit for him and a pillar of support. 2
30
Where there is no fence, the property will be plundered;
and where there is no wife, a man will become a fugitive and a wanderer. 3
31
For who will trust a nimble robber
that skips from city to city?
So who will trust a man that has no nest,
but lodges wherever night overtakes him?