Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/303

 the best Thing I can add, is to say, 'tis the worst Piece of Matrimonial Wickedness that can be practised; I call it Matrimonial, because committed under the Shelter of that sacred Covering; the holy Ordinance is made the disguise for it, the Woman is beguiled, under the Masque, and on the Pretence of its being no Crime.

Man is the Deceiver, he acts the Devil's Part every Way, he is the Tempter, and is a Party to the Crime: As for himself, his Reason must be subjected, or he could never submit to so sordid an Action; he must be degenerated into something below a Man; his Appetite must be all brutal and raging, perfectly out of the government of his Understanding; in a word, he must be out of himself, the thing is so contrary to Reason, that it is indeed contrary to Nature, and to common Sense, for a Man to defile his own Bed, corrupt his own Race, make a Whore of his own Wife; nothing can be more inconsistent with Nature, and, as I say, with common Sense; not to say a Word about Religion, or the Laws of ; These, to the People I am speaking of, are not to be mentioned, or, in the least, supposed to have been thought of.

must the Man or the Woman think of themselves, when, after Marriage, they come to reflect upon this Part? What Reproaches will they cast upon one another? What Comfort, as the Scripture says, can they have in those Things whereof they are now ashamed? Granting for once what, however, very seldom happens, that they do not come to Reproach one another, and Revile one another; suppose the Man good-humour'd enough not to abuse his Wife for her easy complying,