Just before he became Pope Innocent III in 1198, Lothar of Segni wrote De miseria humanae conditionis (On the Misery of the Human Condition). Despite being a somewhat glum view of the world, his work became very popular in the Middle Ages, It included a chapter ‘On the Misery of the Continent and the Married’, where the future Pontiff offers various reasons why a man should not take a wife!
You can read more from this chapter of Innocent III’s work in Medieval Writings on Secular Women, translated by Patricia Skinner and Elizabeth Van Houts. You can also read On the misery of the human condition. De miseria humane conditionis, edited and translated by Margaret Mary Dietz in 1969.
See also:
Medieval Images of Love
Love and Marriage: Medieval Style
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