A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed/Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
ARRIAGE is a state of Union, and the strictest of its Kind that can not only be found, but that can be conceived of among Men. Adam emphatically expresses it, when God brought the Woman to him; This is now Bone of my Bone, and Flesh of my Flesh, Gen. xi. 23. and again, verse 24. and they shall be one Flesh.
So solemn the Institution, so simple the Construction, so fast the Bond, so loose the Persons bound! It would be much too serious for the reading of these Times to enter into a Dissertation upon the solemn Engagement, and upon the Weight and Significance of the Obligation on both Sides, how firm the Bond, how indissolvible the mutual Ties, and how important to the Felicity of Life it is that they should be religiously observed.
I know too well who I am talking to, and at what Time of Day; how the Subordination of one Sex is laughed at and bantered, and the Dominion of the other abused and turned into Tyranny and Oppression; how the Women, instead of Submission, reign; and the Men, instead of a Government in Love, and a superiority of Affection, in which that Government should chiefly consist, insult and oppress their Wives; how the Obligation of forsaking all other, is ridiculed and made a Jest of, and that of keeping your self only unto her, declared to be a meer Church Imposition, a Piece of Priestcraft, and unreasonable.
Do you think, says blushing G——— to his poor subjected but modest Wife, Do you think that ever I intended to meddle with no more than one Woman? No, no, I never promis'd any such Thing; if I did I never intended to keep to it, then he turns and sings a scandalous Song out of Rochester too gross to repeat:
But to live with her all a Man's Life,
Till she grows ——— ———
Good faith, Mr. Parson, I thank you for that,
I thank ye for that:
And whence comes this Contempt? I say, it does not proceed so much from the Wickedness, as from the Ignorance of the Age; Ignorance of the real Felicity of their very Kind; how all that can be called happy in the Life of Man, is summ'd up in the state of Marriage; that it is the Center to which all the lesser Delights of Life tend, as a Point in the Circle that, in short, all the extraordinary Enjoyments of Life are temporary and trifling, and consist chiefly in the strange and uncouth Pleasure which, some Men say, they find in doing what they ought not to do; which, at best, lasts but till they are wise, and learn to know what it is to repent. But the Pleasure of a married State consists wholly in the Beauty of the Union, the sharing Comforts, the doubling all Enjoyments; 'tis the Settlement of Life; the Ship is always in a Storm till it finds this safe Road, and here it comes to an Anchor: 'Tis the want of a taste of Life makes Men despise that Part of it which Heaven at first constituted to compleat the Happiness of his Creatures.
To argue against Marriage, because so many Matches are unhappy, and so few exemplify the Case as it ought to be, is only arguing the Ignorance and Corruption of Mankind, which as it is the Cause, so it is fully discovered by this unhappy Consequence. Did Men expect Happiness in a married Condition, they would Begin and End it after another manner, prepare for it beforehand with more nicety, and take much greater Thought about it before they engaged in it.
Politick Matches are Weddings for Princes, and for Persons of high Birth, where the meer Interests of the Families are the Consideration of the Alliance, and where it is not essential to the Match, whether the Persons love one another or no, at least not so essential as in Persons of a meaner degree.
But as the Persons of a lower Station are, generally speaking, much more happy in their Marrriages, than Princes and Persons of Distinction; so I take much of it, if not all of it, to consist in the Advantage they have to choose and refuse.
Marriages of Princes and Persons of Rank, are rather Leagues and Treaties of Alliance and Confederacy than Weddings, and they are transacted accordingly; the Lady is courted at a Distance, viewed in Effigy by her Picture set with Diamonds, contracted by Envoys Extraordinary, married by Proxy, and then travels a thousand Miles perhaps, or something less, to find out her Husband,
Thus indeed Abraham sent the Steward of his Houshold to fetch his Son Isaac a Wife, about three or four hundred Miles off, and she came with the Messenger: But the Case was plain there; Rebecca saw the visible Finger of God in it, and the Words of Laban her Brother, though himself an Idolater, confessed it, Gen xxiv. 50. then Laban and Bethuel answered, and said, the thing proceedeth from the Lord, we cannot speak unto thee bad or good; and upon this Foundation the Lady ventured to go with the Messenger.
But yet even Rebeccah herself, when she acted the like Part for her Son, and desired to take a Wife for Jacob from the same Country; she sent no Servant of the Errand, but made him go in Person, and choose for himself, and he did so, and pitched upon his well-favoured beautiful Rachel, had not Laban cheated him, and laid a blear-eyed Leah in her Place.
As Marriage is a state of Life in which so much of humane Felicity is really placed, and in which Men may be so compleatly happy or miserable, it seems to me the most rational thing in the World, that the Parties themselves, and them alone, should give the last Strokes to its Conclusion; that they only should be left to determine it, and that with all possible Freedom, that they might be able to say to one another, and that with the utmost Sincerity, at reciting the Office of Matrimony, not I take thee, but I choose thee; thou art my Choice; that the Man may be able to say, not only she is the Wife of my Youth, but she is the Wife of my Affection; and the Woman the same.
How little is this which is the essential Part understood in the World, how little of Love is there to be found in Matrimony, as 'tis now managed; and what is the Consequence but unfaithful performing the Marriage Covenants; disloyalty, breach of Faith and Honour, and the worst Sort of Perjury on both Sides? for as the Marriage Covenant is a solemn Oath, and perhaps the most solemn of all Engagements upon Earth, so breaking it is the worst of Perjury, and ought indeed to be punished as such.
Where there is no Pre-engagement of the Affection before Marriage, what can be expected after it? And what do we find comes after it, but at best continued Jars, Quarrellings, Scolding, and perhaps Fighting? never to be abated, never to be altered, no not by length of Time, not forty Years wedlock has been sufficient to tire out the jangling, ill-matched Tempers; but the Evil takes Root with Time, till the Hatred grows riveted, and becomes natural, they even die with the perpetual Disgust upon them, and carry their Feuds, as it were, along with them to the Grave, as if they resolved to renew the Strife in the next World.
It was a miserable Example of this which a near Relation of mine was an Eye-witness to in the Town of Sherborn in Dorsetshire, or very near it; A Man and his Wife had lived a wretched, continued Life of Contention for almost fifty Years; at length the Woman fell sick and died; while she lay on her Death-bed her Husband came up into the Chamber to see her, as a good Husband ought; the Woman fretful, though sick, found fault with him upon some Occasion of no great moment, and grew angry. Pray, my Dear, says the Man, don't quarrel to your last Moment. The Woman flew into a Passion that he should suggest it was her last Moment, which, she said, he did not know. This put the Man into a Passion too, and he said, rashly enough, that if it was not her last Moment he washed it was, or it would be happy for him if it was, or to that purpose. What! says she, do you Insult me with that, depend upon it you shall be at no Quiet on that Account, for if ever the Dead can come to the Quick, I'll be with thee again.
Whether she kept her Word with him or no, I know not; but 'tis certain she died in two or three Days after, nor did the Man venture to go up to visit her any more. This was indeed carrying on what we may call an eternal Feud; it was a mortal Breach indeed, for nothing ever cur'd it, and yet the Couple were not so exasperated against one another, but that they lived together, were People of good Substance, and some Sense, and even too much Wit; but married, it seems, without the grand constituting Article called mutual Affection, which is indeed, in my Opinion, the essential Part of the Contract; the Woman profess'd she never loved him, and yet she married him; the Man declared he never asked her to love him, or cared one Farthing whether she did or no, so he had but her Money, which was, it seems, what he took her for. Now, was this Matrimony? No, no, it might be Marriage, but I deny that it was Matrimony; here was nothing of GOD's holy Ordinance, or taking one another according to that Ordinance; it was all a contradiction of the main Design; in short, it was a something that wants a Name; and what can be said to contradict me if I should call it a Matrimonial Whoredom?
Well might this Couple answer or say after the Parson, I N, take thee N. But they could never have been married if the Office had run, I N. choose thee N, out of my sincere Affection to thee, and for that Reason take thee, &c. What would have become of us all if this had been the solemn Part or Oath of the Marriage Covenant, and that it had been taken upon Pain of Perjury? How few are there that would dare to be married upon that Foot?
Some are of the Opinion, prudential Matches, as they call them, are best. They tell us, 'tis the Parents business to choose Wives for their Sons, and Husbands for their Daughters; that let them be tied together first, they will toy together till they love afterwards; that Property begets Affection, and that if all other Things hit, they may run the risque of the Love with less inconvenience.
But I must enter my Protest here: I think they that make a Toy of the Affection, will make a Toy of the Matrimony; they seem to know little of the Misery of those Matches who think they are to be toyed into Love after Consummation: how often are they cloyed with one another's Company before the Affection comes in? How little Force has the sport of Marriage, (so a wise Favourer of those prudential Matches was pleased to call it) in it to contract Affection? I have seen enough of it, to make me venture saying, there is not One in Ten of those Kinds of Marriages that succeeds.
Nor is the Surface-Love, which takes so much in the World at this time, any part of the pure, the solid, the rivetted Affection, which, I insist, is so essential to the Felicity of a married Life. Where is the Union of the whole Desire, or even of the Soul of Desire, that which Mr. Milton so very nobly expatiates upon from Adam's Words, They shall be one Flesh, Gen.xi. 24.
Is this to be obtained after Marriage, and that Marriage made perhaps by the choice and at the imperious arbitrary Command cf Superiors? If not, as indeed I think it not rational to imagine, is it so slight a Matter, and of so little Consequence, as that Matrimony should be ventured on without a due Provision for such a Union? Certainly, if any Action of Life is of Consequence, 'tis that which determines the Man for Happiness or Misery: And such is this of Matrimony; for I think I may affirm. Marriage without Love, is the compleatest Misery in Life. Besides, I must say, it is to me utterly unlawful, and entails a Curse upon the Persons, as being wilfully perjured, invoking the Name of God to a Falshood, which is one of the most provoking Crimes that Mankind can commit. He or she who, with that slight and superficial Affection, ventures into the matrimonial Vow, are to me little more than legal Prostitutes: Political Views may make a Marriage, but, in the Sense of God and Nature, 'tis my Opinion they make no Matrimony.
Nor does all this outside, skin-deep Affection, which such Matches at first appear with, protect them against the Deficiencies of their own Tempers, and the Eruptions of their Passion; it fortifies none against Family-Breaches, supplies no Forces against the Attacks of the Passions, and the Unkindnesses which innumerable Circumstances introduce in the subsequent Conduct of both Parties.
These Matches indeed generally produce a great show of Affection, and the Fondness of the Honey-Moon hangs about them a great while, on some more, some less. This I call the Pageantry of Matrimony, and the Cavalcade of Love. But the Strife breaks out insensibly; the Contention, the Contradiction, and all the little Thwartings and Waspishnesses, which lay the Foundation of eternal Discord; these all, like Weeds, grow and spread under the decaying Plant called Love, till at last they check and smother it entirely, and leave the Family a kind of Hell in Miniature.
A late Poet expresses himself upon this Subject with great Elegancy and Affluence of Wit; whether he spake feelingly or not, I cannot say:
Thus a seeming happy Pair,
Who Hymen's early Fetters wear;
In Publick fond as Turtles are.
The unwed with Envy their Caresses view,
But, Oh! what would the amaz'd Beholders do?
If as they see their open Loves, their private
Feuds they knew,
And whence proceeds all this, and ten thousand times more than Heart can conceive, or Pen set down, but from the want of a sincere rivetted Affection between them before Matrimony? The Man that marries without it must be a Knave; the Woman that marries without it must be a Fool; and let me not give hard Words neither, without a sufficient Authority for it; but I'll make it out immediately.
I say, that Man must be a Knave: No honest Man will promise and engage, nay, swear to do a Thing, which he is fully resolved not to do; or which he is not sure he is able to perform, and does not sincerely intend to perform.
In the Terms of the Marriage Vow, the Minister asks the Man these concise Questions:
Wilt thou have this Woman to be thy wedded Wife? He answers, I Will.
Wilt thou love her? I Will.
Wilt thou live with her? I Will.
The Interrogation Wilt thou, is understood as such as if the Minister repeated it every time; and though, he answers with but one I Will, 'tis, as effectually understood to mean a particular Answer to every Interrogation, as if it was repeated to them all, and the meaning is the same; the Man can by no means come off of it; no, nor the Woman either, for her Engagement is equally firm and binding.
This I Will is not only a Promise obligatory, a solemn Engagement and Vow, but 'tis done under the Sanction of Religion, and of an Ordinance of God; it is a sacred Oath, 'tis what the Scripture calls the Oath of God, and the married Man may justly say, the Oath of God is upon him; in short, every time he says, I Will, 'tis the same thing, pardon the Expression, as to say, BY GOD I WILL. He that takes this solemn Oath, without being sure he can sincerely love the Woman, and so perform the Oath, must be a Knave, he cannot be an honest Man; And how can he be certain, if he did not really and sincerely love her before? I think the Case is plain, and answers for it self
Again, take the Woman's Obligation; her Answers are the same to Questions not much differing; and when the Questions are summ'd up, (I need not repeat them here) she answers, and says, or, if you will, she answers and wears, as above,
I Will.
You will! What will you do, Madam? Will you live with a Man, and lie with a Man you don't love? As I said before, that such a Lady must be a Fool, I say now 'tis worse; 'tis but a kind of legal Prostitution, in the plain English of it, too gross and wicked to express. We must not say she is a Whore, because the Law makes it a literal Contract and Marriage. But God forbid I should ever say 'twill pass for Matrimony in Heaven; the young Lady, in short, is willing, or has a mind, or desires, (call it what you please) to lie with a Man; and she takes a Fellow that is just in the same Condition, under the Influence of some lewd Appetite, and he desires to lie with a Woman. They are both willing to gratify their vitious Part in the formality of a legal Appointment, and so they agree to marry in form, and they are called Man and Wife; as such she throws off the Mask of Modesty, goes into the naked Bed to him, or suffers him to come to Bed to her; and as they came together upon the meer Principles of Desire, as above, so they act the several Excesses, and all the conjugal Madnesses, Chamberings and Wantonnesses, mentioned or pointed at above, and all this while not one Ounce of Affection, not a Grain of original, chast, and rivetted Love, the Glory of a Christian Matrimony, and the essential Happiness of Life, is to be found between them.
Is this Matrimony! Is this a Marriage made in Heaven! Is this being joined together according to God's holy Ordinance! Forbid it, O Heaven! that I should call it by that honourable and religious Title: On the contrary, it merits, if I may be allowed to give my Judgment, nothing less or more than the Title of a Matrimonial Whoredom, or, at least, of a Matrimonial Prostitution.
It would make a Story too long for the present Work, and a little too gross for my resolved Way of writing; if I should enter into a Description of the conjugal Conversation of two Persons, coming together upon this Foot; that is to say, of meer Nature, and the promptings of the Sexes, without any previous and personal Affection; I say, to describe the manner of their Conversation after the first Principles of their Conjunction are evaporated or exhaled, after the Fire is out, and the combustible Matter that kindled it is consumed; when the Vapour is exhaled, the airy Part spent and evaporated, and the humid Part fully condensed; how coldly they meet? How they look at one another, as a surfeited, cloyed Stomach relishes a full-spread Table? How they nauseate one another as a sick Body that is gorged with Physick, or a consumptive Person sick of his Cordials.
How their very Mirth is dull and insipid, and they are so far from diverting one another, that their Happiness consists very unhappily in being as much absent from one another as they can. Unwarily talking once to a Gentlewoman of my particular Acquaintance, whose Circumstances in Matrimony, tho' very good, have yet a Defect of this kind at the Bottom. Madam, said I, you are very happy in so kind a Husband, so tender, so obliging; pray let us have his Company; the Gentleman was but in the next Room; and I was for calling him in. Let him alone, says she very coldly, let him alone, you han't so much of his Company as I have; I had rather be without him; he would have made any Woman in England a good Husband but me.
Why Madam, said I, does not he make you a good Husband? We are all of Opinion he is an extraordinary good Husband. I don't know, says she, it may be I an't so good a Wife as I should be. O Madam, said I, don't say so; I believe you are a very good Wife. Indeed, fays she, I an't so good a Wife as I should be; we married young, and the main Ingredient was wanting: We did as we were bid, but we were never troubled much with the Thing called LOVE; and I find, by sad Experience, Wedlock is a miserable Thing without it.
Why, Madam, says I, your Circumstances are good, and you live very easy on both Sides.
That's true, said she; but I tell you, the main Ingredient is wanting. I never lov'd him; and I always thought he never could love me; for indeed, I never did go about to oblige him, because I had never any real Value for him.
That's a very unhappy Case indeed. Madam, said I.
So unhappy, says she, that I would never advise any Body to marry without they know on both Sides, how things stand as to Love; for 'tis all nothing but a Banter to talk of Happiness without it; they that don't love before they marry, will never be happy when they are married.
But, Madam, you have been long married, said I; methinks kind and good Usage on both Sides should have made Love by this time.
'I don't know how it may do in other Folks, says she, but 'tis not so with me; Mr. W——— is as kind and tender of me as I can desire, and yet I don't know what ails me, I never did, and I never can love him; it won't do; I would advise no Body to marry before they Love; let them depend upon it, if they don't Love before-hand they will never love afterward; it is not to be done; I have found it by sad Experience.
Why, Madam, says I, the World thinks you are a mighty happy Couple.
Why then we have cheated the World, says she, as we did one another; for, I can assure you, as I speak to you in Confidence, we are a very unhappy Couple.
Why, Madam, you don't Quarrel, says I.
No, says she, never; good Manners, and good Breeding keep us from that: But what are all those Negatives to make a Couple happy? there's no Happiness without Love, and that on both Sides. Oh! says she with a Sigh, and so concluded the Discourse, let no Body marry and come together without Love; 'tis nothing but what is not fit to name without it; 'tis all scandalous and shameful; and so we called up other Discourse; for I had enough of it, and the Lady fell into Tears, and yet she confess'd all the Fault was her own too.
And what generally speaking is the End of such preposterous Conjunctions as this was, but a Birth of Monsters? Pardon me, I don't mean that the Children born between them shall be Monsters in shape, imperfect, unfinish'd, wanting their Limbs, or with more Limbs than Nature directs, as in many monstrous Births is the Case; though I could say some pertinent Things upon that Subject too, if the Age could bear it: But my meaning is, these Conjunctions generally break out in monstrous Consequences; Family Confusions, violent Contentions, unsufferable Passions, raging at one another in vile Language, Quarrels, Feuds, Fightings, or at least Insultings of one another; in all which they act Furious, as in their original Gusts of another kind, reproaching themselves with that very criminal Part which brought them together, upbraiding one another with the very Things which threw them precipitantly into one another's Arms, from whence proceeded the Ruin they bear. These, and a thousand monstrous Passions, ungoverned like the Fire of their early, blind and hasty Desires, are the Effects of that preposterous Matrimony that is contracted upon such Foundations as these.
How is it possible any thing but this, or such as this, can be the Issue, since when the first Desires are gratified, Dislikes and Aversions, hateful Regret and Repentings, as naturally succeed such Corrupt and half-born Love; as Hatred succeeded the same kind of Affection in Ammon, when he had ravished his Sister, and which made him, as it were, kick her down Stairs.
A true Affection can never be the Product of a vitious Inclination, any more than an evil Tree can bring forth good Fruit, 'tis contrary to the Nature of the Work; a chast, affectionate Embrace is quite another Thing; the one is from Heaven formed in the Soul for the good of Mankind, by the glorious Hand of a beneficent Power, and directed for the Propagation of a chast and virtuous Breed, fitted with inbred original Modesty and Principles of Virtue, as it were, convey'd by Blood to the Honour of the very Ordinance of Matrimony it self, and of the primitive Institution of it in Paradise: Shall we constitute a vitious or vitiated Desire in the room of Love, and a corrupt Combination of two enflamed Pieces of Pollution under the shelter of legal Forms, and call this Matrimony? It can produce nothing but Mischief and Confusion, the Nature of the Thing dictates no other.
To say Love is not essential to the Form of a Marriage, is true; but to say it is not essential to the Felicity of a married State, and consequently to that which I call Matrimony, is not true; and you may as truly say, that Peace is not essential to the good of a Family; as that the Harmony and Conjunction of Souls are not essential to the Happiness of the Persons joyn'd together.
If the Man or Woman that is to marry do not value whether they are Happy or no, or whether they live with the Person they are to marry in a state of War or Peace, always Jarring, Fighting and, Contending, or always Agreeing, Uniting and Joyning in their Desires and Designs: If it is indifferent whether they are as Doves always brooding under one another's Wings, or Serpents hissing at and stinging one another, such may marry Blindfold, and expect the Consequences; such a Woman may take a Man as the Sow takes the Boar in her Season, meerly to raise a Litter, meerly to gratify her brutal Part; and when that is gratify'd, and he or she perhaps surfeited with the Person, may run away to an adulterous Bargain with another, for the meer gust of Variety, as is often the Case; In short, what is Marrying, and what is the meeting of the Sexes, where Love and an original Affection is not concerned? 'tis too wicked to mention, too vile to name; to describe it would run me into the worst Sort of Levity; and I must talk as vitiously as they act that do so.
Conceive of it then in the grossest Terms you can, in Terms suited to the beastly Part, in Terms fitted to give your Thoughts the greatest Disgust, and to fill you with Detestation; for, in a word, there is nothing of Decency or Modesty, nothing Chast or Virtuous, can be said about it. It is true, every Body that does marry in this manner does not consult the Reason of the thing, and do not perhaps consider what they are doing.
They do not look into the Scandal of it, or weigh the Consequences; they desire a Man; that is indeed the Fact; 'tis in the Nature of the Thing, and cannot be denied: But the Lady does not consider what Consequences attend its being desired in such a manner; (he takes the Thing as it appears; the Man offers to her upon honourable Terms, as they are corruptly called, that is, he will marry her; she neither enquires of her self whether he is the Man of her Choice, whether she loves him, and upon what Reason and Foundation the Love subsists, whether upon his Person as a Man, or his Merit as a Man of Virtue and Sense. But she ignorantly passes over these Things, and does not see that she lies open to all the Censure, which, I say, is justly due to such a kind of Matrimony.
This is saying as much in her Favour as the Case will admit, as much as indeed it is possible to say for her: But let her strip the Case naked of all the false Glosses which 'tis perhaps covered with, and then look upon it; or let her look into it after a Year or two, worn out in the odd, uncouth, retrograde Wedlock that she is engaged in, and then she will see with other Eyes; then she'll see she wedded a worthless, senseless, vain and empty shadow of a Man, in gratification of the Humour which she was at that time in for a Bedfellow; that she has the Man, and no more, and that now all the rest is wanting; that she has the Man but not the Husband, not the Companion, not the obliging, affectionate Relative that she ought to have looked for, and to have fixed her Choice upon; and what bitter Reproaches does she load her self with when she sees her self in the Arms of a Fool instead of a Man of Sense; of a Brute and a Boar instead of a Man of Breeding and Behavour; of a Churl and a Fury instead of a Man of Humour and Temper; and all this occasioned by her following blindly and rashly that young wanton Inclination, which she knew not how to govern.
This is treating the Crime with tenderness, and the Criminal with pity, that must be confess'd, and I am very willing to do so in Compassion to human Infirmity. But when all that is done, I must be allowed to say, the Fact deserves the severest Reflection, let the Ignorance or Rashness, or whatever other Infirmity of the Persons, be pleaded in their Excuse.
It may be farther suggested, that sometimes these unhappy Consequences do not follow, or, if you please, it is not always so bad. But this argues nothing in favour of the false Step taken, or the gross Conduct spoken of. Providence may, in Compassion to the Infirmities of his Creatures, deal with them better than they deserve, and may mercifully spare the Punishments which they ought to expect; but this Mercy is far from a Reason why they should offend; on the contrary, it is the Reason why they should not.
On the other hand: Now view but the Felicity of a married Couple, engaged before Marriage, by a mutual, a sincere, and well-grounded Affection; who Love, and know why they do so; love upon the solid Foundation of real Merit, personal Virtue, similitude of Tempers, mutual Delights; that see good Sense, good Humour, Wit, and agreeable Temper in one another, and know it when they see it, and how to judge of it; that make each the Object of a reciprocal Choice, and fix all the View of their future Felicity in the Possession of the Person so loved; whose Affection is founded in Honour and Virtue, their Intentions modest, their Desires chast, and their Designs equally sincere.
When these come together, there's Matrimony in its Perfection; if they marry, they can answer the Minister, when he asks them, Will you love him? Will you love her? The Man can say, I will, because I do; I will, and she is assured I will; I will, for she highly merits all my Affection.
It would call for a Volume, not a Page, to describe the Happiness of this Couple. Possession does not lessen, but highten their Enjoyments; the Flame does not exhaust it self by burning, but encreases by its continuance; 'tis young in its remotest Age; Time makes no Abatement; they are never surfeited, never satiated; they enjoy all the Delights of Love without the criminal Excesses; Modesty and Decency guide their Actions, and set Bounds, not only to their Motions, but to their Desires; and, as Mr. Milton emphatically expresses it:
"———Shall to his Wife adhere,
"And they shall be one Flesh, one Heart, one Soul.
Milt. Par. lib. 8. fol. 214.
Nothing criminal can creep in between, or among the Pleasures they enjoy; their Delights are full, yet they are chast, temperate, constant, and, in a word, durable.
Their Children are like their Parents, as Streams are from Fountains, formed in the Mould of Virtue and Modesty; not Furies and little Devils, that partake of the Rage they were form'd in, with their Blood boiling before it comes to the consistency of its due Vigour; but they hand down Virtue to their Posterity by the due Course of Nature, and the Consequence of due Calmness and Serenity in their own Spirits; for it is certain, that Humour and Temper descend in the Line of Families as well as Diseases and Distemper; 'tis a just Encouragement to Virtue that it is so, and 'tis just to let such know it for the Encouragement of their good Conduct.
How blest is the House where such a Couple inhabit? and all this Difference flows meerly from this one Branch, viz. Love before Marriage; Love is the constituting Quality of their Matrimony, the Reason of it, the Foundation on which it was built, and the Support of it after it was built. Such Families are happy by the meer natural Consequence of Life; their Tempers have nothing in them to form any Discord or Strife from; they cannot Differ, Contend, Rage, Quarrel, Reflect, Reproach, Provoke, it is not in them; Nature has no such thwart Lines drawn over their Constitution; they are united in Good, and can never be united in Evil too; these Contraries would not illustrate, but destroy one another; in a word, they are all Love, and because they are all Love, therefore their Behaviour is all Peace; the Calm is in the Soul, and when it is so, there can never be a Storm in the Mind; Love is not in them a Passion but a Quality; 'tis rooted and riveted in their very Beings, they have a Disposition to it in their very Nature.
This being a settled Principle in them, both natural and habitual, it comes of course to exert it self in the Article of Matrimony. i. They resolve not to marry but where they are sure, and fully satisfy'd they can Love, that is to say, that as they resolve it to be a Duty, so they resolve to practice it. 2. In order to this, prudence directs them to reject every Offer where Love does not concur with the other Circumstances, and make the Person perfectly not agreeable only, but the Object of their sincere and compleat Affection, and that upon good Foundations too.
When these Things happen, then they marry; if the Person thus marry'd meets with a Disappointment, as how often is the sincerest Affection abused, be it that the Lady marries a bad Husband, is mistaken in the Object, fixes her Mind upon an unworthy Fellow that feigned Love, and Honour, and Vertue, in his Addresses, and proves a Hypocrite in them all; what is the Consequence? She is made miserable indeed, and wretchedly so; But we do not see the House made a Bedlam; it is not Fire on one Side and Tinder on the other, it is not Sulphur and Nitre, which meeting makes Thunder; the Brute behaves as Brutes will; but the poor Lady mourns, sees her self made miserable by the Man she loves; bears it as Christians bear remediless Sorrows, perhaps pines under it and dies, as is the fate of many a faithful, tender, affectionate Wife: And 'tis the same thing in the Man, he takes a Lady, in appearance good; she is to him the Wife of his Youth, of his Affection, of his first and purest Love, whom he made his Choice before Marriage, and places his Delight in afterward: But as none can see the Inside and Soul of the Object, she proves a Piece of Froth and Vanity; is idle, luxurious, expensive, thoughtless in her Affairs, cold and indifferent in her Affection, and, at last, loose and light; and, in a word, any thing, or every thing, that is foolish and wicked.
It is not easy to describe the anguish of his Soul at the disappointment: He had fixed his Love with a firm and riveted Force as a wise Man would and ought, long before he married her, nay, perhaps before he courted her; he had chosen her from the beautiful, the wealthy, the virtuous, and the good-humoured, among whom his Circumstances being good, he had room to choose.
As he loved before Marriage, he resolved to love her afterwards, because he was sure he should; and thus he resolved to make her happy, and make himself happy, in having her. But how is he disappointed when be finds a Traitor in his Bosom, a Fury in his Bed, a Serpent in his Arms, that neither loves, values or regards him? That, after a few Years, or perhaps Days, forgets all her Matrimonial Vows, the strongest Ties of the solemnest Oath; thinks of nothing but Pleasure and Folly, despises the Entreaties of her Husband, and at last himself, as a Husband; and, it may be, closes all with running away from him, or with ruining him, breaking both his Heart and his Fortunes together.
These are some of the Disasters where the Love is on one Side without the other. What must then be the Consequences where it is of neither Side? How miserable, how distracted a Family does it make! And in what wretched Doings does it frequently End? To marry without Affection! It seems to be like two Bulls chained together, that being tied so close as that they cannot gore and kill one another, yet are always striving to do it, wishing to do it; and, if they break the Bonds, never fail to bring it to pass.
I cannot think, and have so many Reasons for my Opinion, I believe I shall never alter it; I say, I cannot think the Marriage can be lawful where there was not a resolved settled Affection, sincerely embraced before the Matrimony was contracted. I will not follow Mr. Milton, and carry it up to this, that it may be dissolved again upon that single Account: No, no, I shall open no Doors to the vitiated Wishes of the Times; where Men would have Marriage be a stated Contract; where as the Parties agreement made the Bargain, so the same mutual Agreement might dissolve it; where as insincere Love joined them, a sincere and perfect Hatred should part them again. This would fill the World with Confusion, would pollute the Ordinance of Matrimony instead of keeping it sacred as God's holy Ordinance; 'twould make Marriage a Stale, a Convenience, to gratify the sensual Part, and to be made use of as a thing not to be named; and when that Worst Part of the Affections was satiated, the Parties be left to please and gratify their wicked Appetite with Variety.
This is not talking like Christians, or like Men of Virtue, no, not like Men guided by human Prudence, or by civil Polity, much less Reason; for this would corrupt the Blood of Families, level Mankind with one another, confound Order, and, in a word, would fill the World with Whoredom.
No, no; if you will rush like the Horse into the Battle; if you will be mad, and follow rashly, and without Consideration, the raging heat of corrupt Inclination only, and go hoodwinked and blinded, you must take the Consequences to your selves; if you will wed without Affection, you must be content to live without Affection; if you come madly together, you must expect to live madly together; as King Charles said to his Brother, the Duke of York, when he had married the Lord Chancellor's Daughter in private, and would have disowned her in publick, you must Drink as you Brew; in short, the Bond is too sacred to be broken at pleasure; the Chain too strong for the two Bulls to break; as you are once bound you must remain in Bonds; once in Algier, and ever a Slave; nothing releases you but a Redemption by Death, on one Side or other.
How foolish then, as well as wicked and unlawful, is it to marry before you love? To rush into a state of irrecoverable Life without the only Article that can make it tolerable? They that marry without Affection go to Sea without a Rudder; launch into the most dangerous Ocean without a Pilot, and without a Compass: Love is the only Pilot of a married State; without it there is nothing but Danger in the Attempt, nothing but Ruin in the Consequence.
The dirty Part of it I have mentioned; and I still insist upon it, that it is not a Matrimony of a right kind; to me it is no Matrimony at all, but a corrupt, rash, hot-headed (and worse) Bargain, made to gratify the worst Part of the Man or Woman, to please the grossest Part of his Constitution, and for nothing else. Let a modest Woman, if such she can be, stand forth, and answer this one short Question:
Pray, Madam, what do you marry this Gentleman for?
She cannot say, she marries him to take care of her Affairs, as is generally the Plea of the young forward Widows, for she is a maiden Lady, and has no Affairs.
She cannot say, she marries for Maintenance, for she is rich, and has a plentiful Estate.
She cannot say, she marries for Affection, for me declares she don't love him.
She cannot say, 'tis to have Children, for she says something else to that, of which our next Chapter shall speak more fully.
Pray then, what do you marry this Man for? Her Answer, if she will speak Truth, must be this: Truly, because I want to lie with a Man. Horrid Plea! Is this a just Reason for Matrimony! And can it be honestly called Matrimony; whatever it may be called in the Sense of legal Forms, can it be called so in the Sense of Conscience and of Honour? Is it not much more proper to say, 'tis a Matrimonial Whoredom?
I see but one Answer that can be given to this Argument, or be made a Plea for this kind of Matrimony, and this is a coarse one for either Party, I confess; but much more so for the Ladies, viz. That Marriage is said to be appointed to prevent Fornication; and that 'tis a Scripture direction to marry, rather than to turn. Let them that marry upon this Foundation acknowledge it then, and tell one another so before-hand, and see how the Tale will sit upon the Tongue of a young Gentleman, when he courts a Lady, and begins to address her thus:
Madam, I have a great define to marry you.
Pray Sir, says she, what do you desire me for? You don't love me, I hear.
Why, no truly, says he, I can't say I have much love for you, or for any Body else.
Why then do you marry, pray? says she.
Why, Madam, to tell you the truth, says he, I want a Woman, and I am loth to go to a Whore; so I will supply my self in a lawful way.
This would be very Impudent, you'll say, it may be; but I must add, 'tis honest, and much honester, than to swear he loves her above all the World, damns himself over and over if he don't; tells her a thousand Lies to draw her in, and when he is married, tells her the Truth in a Brutish and insolent manner, that he never cared one Farthing for her; that he wanted a Woman, and took her for his Convenience; and that now he has had his fill of her, she would greatly oblige him if she would dispose of her self out of his way, offering her one of his Garters for the Occasion.
It would lead me into the grand Error of Language, which I have profess'd to avoid, if I should pretend to give this wicked vile Part, a full Delineation; 'tis difficult to express such a dirty Subject in clean Words; and therefore I avoid giving the Ladies the Anatomy of a Couple come together without a previous Affection; or the Discourses that pass between them when perhaps, one Side or other are disappointed in the grand Expectation. It would surfeit the Reader to hear a certain Tradesman's Lady call her Husband ——— Dog, and ask him what he thinks she married him for? Nor should I mention so foul a Story, did not Mrs. ——— ——— give all her Neighbours leave to hear her say a thousand Things, in plainer English, to him every Day, of a grosser kind.
If the Ladies will speak, the Boys and Girls in the Street will never hold their Tongues. When the Secrets of the Bed-Chamber become no longer Secrets, and the Wife shall publish her own Shame, who can she think will conceal it? When she ceases to Blush, who will Blush for her?
But 'tis enough; let us touch this vile Part with as light a Stroke as possible, and you must be content to go without the modest Lady S——— B———'s Story; as also the diverting Complaint of Madam Arab.with that of the new-married Alderman ———'s Lady, and several more of the discontented Part of this modest Town, unless you please to get an Account of them from their own Mouths, which they are most ready to do on all Occasions, as publick as you please, Men, Boys and Midwives, being present.
This is the Effect of marrying without Affection, without a serious, preingaged Soul, without mutual and unfeigned Complaisance and Delight one in another; in a word, this is what I call Matrimonial Whoredom; if I miscal it, let me be convinced by the better Behaviour of the Persons, that I slander the state of Life thus entered into, and then I shall acknowledge my Error; and it cannot be reasonably expected of me before.
