Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/195



O Love and not to Marry, is Nature's Aversion; to Marry and not to Love, is Nature's Corruption; the first is Hateful, the last is really Criminal; and, as has been said in its Place, it is, in some Respects, both Murther and Robbery; it makes a Man Felo de se, with respect to all the Comforts of his Life; and it makes him a Robber to his Wife, if she be a Woman that has the misfortune to Love him. And this I have spoken to at large in the last Chapter.

to marry one Woman and love another, to marry one Man and be in love with another, this is yet worse, tenfold worse, if that be possible! 'tis, in its kind, a meer Piece of Witchcraft; it is a kind of civil, legal Adultery, nay, it makes the Man or Woman be committing Adultery in their Hearts every Day of their lives; and can I be wrong therefore to say, that it may be very well called a Matrimonial Whoredom? if I may judge, it is one of the worst Kinds of it too.