Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/277

 2. it was true; both these joined to excuse the Knight, who otherwise, and as I said, till by long and unsufferable Taunts and ill Usage, he was put a little out of himself, was a Person of all possible Temper and Manners.

also brings it home to my Point, namely, that these lewd ill-principled Matches are often as Miserable as they are Scandalous, as Unhappy as they are Unseemly; and as they begin in Wickedness, they end in Weakness; for Crime and Shame follow one another.

I shall, perhaps, be asked here, What this Unsuitable and Unequal marrying relates to my Title, and to the Subject I am upon, (viz.) of Matrimonial Whoredom? And why I ramble from my Text? But I shall make it out, that I am not gone from my Subject at all; because almost all those Inequalities and Unsuitable Things, which I complain of as the Bane of Matrimony, are generally the Consequences of those Marriages, which are guided by the Tail rather than the Head; forced on by the Inclination rather than the Understanding, pushed by the Impetuosity of the corrupt Part, not guided by the steddy Results of Reason; the Fruit of Desire not Judgment, and with a View to sensual Pleasure, not solid Enjoyments.

are the great Moving-Wheels in the Machines of rash and unguided Love; the Passion of Love, not the Quality, is the Weight that makes them move; it is the Fuel of Love, not the Flame; the Flame would be pure, were the Materials that feed it pure: But