Note that it threads the needle- no woman-bashing, quite the contrary, but just a statement of independence, quite different from the modern cultural assumption that any man owes any woman obedience by default.
Yes, the English language was far different then, and you have to be a bit open-minded about it.. but wisdom is not a recent phenomenon.
This used to be taught in universities, well into the 20th Century at least. I suppose now, after four hundred years, we can look forward to it being purged.
“Shall I Wasting in Despair”
by George Wither
Shall I wasting in despair
Die because a woman’s fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
‘Cause another’s rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow’ry meads in May—
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
Shall my foolish heart be pined
‘Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well-disposed nature
Joinèd with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder, than
Turtle dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?
Shall a woman’s virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her merits’ value known
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may gain her name of Best;
If she seem not such to me,
What care I how good she be?
‘Cause her fortune seems too high
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind
Where they want of riches find,
Think what with them they would do
That without them dare to woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?
Great or good, or kind or fair,
I will ne’er the more despair:
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?