Of my three brothers, I remain the only one without wife or children at the comparatively ripe old age of 35. All of my other brothers have seen fit to not only marry, but also have children - one of which having a Half Dozen children of his own!
I, on the other hand, have always seemed a lifelong bachelor. I am studious, contemplative, and generally fond of a quiet evening with a cup of tea, and a book... Moreover, as an artist and a bit of a mad cap, I've often been glad to only be responsible for myself, so to speak...
It speaks to my thoughts of responsibility and dependency with a wife and child.
I feel as if much of my quixotic behavior would be inexcusable for a man beholden to a family... That somehow, it would require a personal adjustment of priorities and an abandonment of things I enjoy.
But moreover, I think it captures the way that this bond is not so much 'responsibility' in the sense of duty or obligation, but that, when we choose to place such valuable parts of our hearts and futures into the hands and bodies of others, we are giving up a certain kind of power. That our acceptance of this love necessitates a ransom of our own in return...
Fortune may speak to actual money, as many a man has lost his wife or child for the simple crime of poverty alone, or it may speak to the greater sense of fortune as luck or destiny. Good fortune or bad fortune (misfortune), perhaps most worryingly, are intangible specters we can have no true mastery of, and in our hearts, we all know it will eventually get the better of us.
To put your heart and the lives of those you love in the hands of such a capricious and fickle god is a step too far for most sound minded men...
A funny comparison to Sir Bacon's life in several ways... Not only was he the father of the scientific method, and quite the rationalist, but he too was something of a lovelorn bachelor.
Scorned by a woman he loved at a young age when she chose a richer man (a more fortunate man), he seemed to largely avoid relationships in his adult life... Choosing instead to become a scholar and scientist (not dissimilar to myself).
He eventually married at the age of 45, and was attached to his bride, as accounts say, but she became disenchanted with the relationship when his financial prospects proved to be less 'fortunate' than she had hoped, or was accustomed to.
Ironcically, when he discovered in later years that his bride had engaged in an affair, perhaps related to a 'fortunate' encounter, he decided to take his revenge by dis-inheriting his wife from his estates upon his death.
Thus for the misfortunes wrought upon him by the fickle fortune of his life, he withheld his fortune from those that would have had it...
Either way, it makes for quite a story all tied up into a single phrase, and is one I find myself contemplating more and more of late as I ask myself if I desire to willingly put myself in such a situation...
...Let us say, for the right girl, the hostages would be held whether I chose to negotiate or not!