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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 verynear
