Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/246

[ 232 ] the Lady to have no Occasion to better her Fortune, her Circumstances being very good, and indeed, in such Cases they seldom better their Fortunes, but worst them.

her to have no want of a Steward or Manager, her Estate being a Jointure or Fee-Farm Rent, paid her Quaterly, or Interests of Stocks, or any other Certainty that takes those Excuses from her.

her to have no Occasion for advancing her Equipages or Retinue, or her splendid Way of Living; for these, and such as these, are usually made Excuses for all those scandalous Things, and much dirty Pains are taken by the guilty Ladies, to cover the Action from the just Reflections which the World casts upon them. But when they are examined to the Bottom,'tis evident, that, as the Prophet Isaiah says, the Covering is too narrow, and the Nakedness will appear.

to come closer to the Case. Here is a Lady of fifty or sixty Years of Age, she has had Children in her younger Years, but has left Bearing for ten or twenty Years, and is past not the Probability only, but even the Possibility, according to Nature, of Bearing any more. But this Woman casting her vitiated Eyes upon a young Fellow of twenty-five or thirty Years old, perhaps her Servant, her Book-keeper, or her late Husband's Steward, or some meaner Person, she presently takes Care to let him know, that he may be admitted, if he will push at it. The young Fellow takes the Occasion, and, making his easy Interest, she marries him.

any Man is displeased at my calling this by the Name of Matrimonial Whoredom, let