[ 171 ]
marry the Man she cannot love, because it would be an unlawful Action, unjust and injurious both to the Man and to her self; and no Command of a Parent can be obliging upon her, to do an unlawful or unjust Action.
The Parent therefore may command her not to marry this or that Person, but may not command her to marry any particular Person, who she declares her self not to love; for this would be to command her to lie, and be forsworn, in the express Terms of the Marriage Contract.
Again; it were to be wished, that every one that marries before they fix their Affection sincerely upon the Person they are to have, would consider what I just mentioned above, (viz.) the Wrong they do to the Person they take; suppose it be the Woman, who, at the Book, they promise upon Oath to love, and yet afterwards perhaps, tell them to their Faces, they never loved them at all: This is an irretrievable Injury to the Person, who perhaps was, as it were, snatched out of the Arms of those that did love her, and of another that would have loved her, and who perhaps she loved also, and, persuaded or over-ruled by Parents, to take one who pretended as much to love as any one, but only took her for her Money, and venturing upon those Pretensions, she or he is now deceived and disappointed, the Wrong is irreparable; the Lady that might, if he had let her alone, been made happy, is abused, is made miserable, is injured in the grossest manner, and he had much better have ravished her, and been hanged, as he deserved; I mean better for her; then she had been free again, and though she had been abused, the In-jury
