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said just now, and perhaps with mean and unthinking Views, I think I may say, Views unworthy of the Dignity and Honour of a married State, seem surprised and disappointed when they come to enter upon the subsequent more weighty and solid Part of the married Life? How often do we hear them say, If I had known what it had been to be a Wife, if I had known what it had been to be a Husband, and to have the Care of a Family upon me, and a House-full of Children to provide for, and take care of, I would never have married. Some indeed Repent upon a worse Foot. But I am speaking of it now, even where the Article of a bad Husband or a bad Wife are not concerned.
Marriage is an honourable State or Station of Life, but it is not a thoughtless, idle, unemployed State, even where the Concerns of the Family are easy, where Plenty flows, and the World smiles; yet a married Life has its Cares, its Anxieties, its Embarassments, which the young Lady knew nothing of in her Father's House, where she liv'd without Care, without Disturbance, slept without Fear, and wak'd without Sorrows. But married, she is a Mistress, she is a Mother, she is a Wife, every one of which Relations has its little addenda of Incumcumbrance, and perhaps of Uneasiness too, be her Circumstances as good otherwise as she can or would suppose them to be.
We have an English saying, they that marry in haste repent at leisure. Now though my Design is not to run down the married State, and raise frightful Ideas in the Minds of those that are to enter into it, so as to prevent their marrying; yet, I hope, I may hint to them,
that
