Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/147

 Aversion to Matrimony because of it, and shall reject all the best Offers, the handsomest Gentlemen, suitable Settlements, agreeable Figures, and the like, and resolve the Celibacy of her Life, purely because she would have no Children; this indeed, however it may reflect upon her Sense, and her Wisdom, will yet reflect nothing upon her Virtue, or upon her Sincerity, because she acts according to her profess'd Sentiments; and all her Conduct is of a Piece.

to pretend to all this Aversion for Children, to nauseate the Nursing, the Watching, the Squaling, the fatigue of bringing up Children, which, as they call it, makes a Woman a Slave and a Drudge all her Days; to be perpetually exclaiming against this, and then MARRY, what must we call this?

a young, handsome and agreeable Lady, with all the Blushes and Modesty of her Virgin Years about her, and under the best of Education, to marry, go naked to Bed, and receive the Man, as it were, in her Arms, and then say, she hopes she shall have no Children, and she desires to have no Children, this is a Language I cannot understand; it will bear no modest Construction in my Thoughts, and, in a word, is neither more or less than acknowledging that she would have the Pleasure of lying with a Man, but would not have the least Interruption from her usual Company keepings the Jollitry and Mirth of her younger Years; that she would not abate her Pleasures, she would not be confined at home, or loaded with the Cares of being a Mother.

a word, she would have the Use of the Man, but she would not act the Part of the Woman; she would have him be the Hus-