Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/351

 Things; but Marriage is no Protection for Crime; Marriage covers the Bed undefiled, and makes it pure and honourable. But the Man may pollute even his Marriage-Bed, and when he does so, he makes that criminal which would otherwise be lawful.

unnatural Crimes may be acted in the Marriage-Bed; and will any Man say, it is no Sin because it is under the Cover of Marriage; the Woman may be ravish'd in the Marriage-Bed, and the Man deserve the Gallows for Crimes offer'd to his own Wife. Let such consider of it, lest the Woman turn the Slipper up against them, and least they be exposed as they deserve.

Matrimony is no Protection for unnatural Vices, so neither is it for indecent Excesses and Immodesties; and as for the Pleasure they take in the contemplation of what was criminal in the committing, as it is doubling the Offence, so it is with the addition of something unnatural in it also. In a word, talking Lewdly, according to a known Author, is infamous, but talking lewdly of conjugal Actions is unnatural and odious; 'tis a kind of a Sodomy of the Tongue, 'tis a Crime that wants a Name, but 'tis great pity it should want a Punishment.



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