Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/340

 the Things, which we yet are openly and shamelessly guilty of.

is one of the Breaches Mankind make in their ordinary Practice, not upon the Laws of Decency only, but upon the Law of Nature; for the Separation is evidently directed by the Law of Nature; 'tis dictated from the first Principles of that Knowledge which the most Ignorant are furnished with of themselves.

Women indeed ought to be the Conservators of this Law; and as they seem to have a kind of absolute Power over themselves during their ordinary Separations, they seem to be the most chargeable with the Breach of it; because they are not altogether so Passive at this time as at another.

there is a Breach of Modesty here, 'tis on her Side chiefly, and therefore the Reproof is to her, and ought to be so taken; for it is as notorious a Charge upon her, as that of admitting a Man, upon Promise of Matrimony, before it was formed into a Marriage; which indeed, tho' the aggressing was chargeable upon the Man, yet the yielding or consenting which was wholly upon the Woman's Side, and in her Power, plainly makes her chargeable with the Offence, makes it all her own Act and Deed; so it is here; and therefore it is true, that the Crime is her's, and the Reproof is upon her, and upon her only.

Law of, in the publick Institution of the Jewish OÉconomy, states this Case with respect to the Woman's Separation after Child-bearing in such a manner, as that tho' the Jewish Constitutions, being abolished, do not seem to be binding to us, yet they are cer-