Of domesticall duties eight treatises. I. An exposition of that part of Scripture out…

Courtesy is that virtue whereby a wife taketh occasion to testify her acknowledgement of her husbands superiority by some outward obeisance to him. Rebekah, so soon as she saw Isaac, whom she had taken for her husband, lighted from her Camel and came to him on foot, which was a kind of obeisance. This is not so to be taken as if no difference were to be made betwixt the carriage of a servant, or child, and a wife: or as if a wife should bow at every word that she speaketh to her husband. Though in the kind and extent of many duties the same things are required of wives which are required of children and servants, because God hath made them all inferiors, and exacted subjection of all: yet in the manner and measure of many duties there is great difference: as in this, the obeisance of children and servants ought to be more submissive, and more frequent. Yet because God hath placed authority in the husband over his wife, she is every way to testify her reverend respect of her husband, and therefore at some times, on some occasions (as when he is going on a journey for a time from her, or when he returneth home again, or when she hath a solemn and great suit to make unto him, or when he offereth an especial and extraordinary favour unto her, or (as I have observed such wives as know what beseemeth their place, and are not ashamed to manifest as much) when she sitteth