Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/391

 would humbly recommend it to the Legislature to think of proper Remedies for so dreadful a Mischief.

is not for me to dictate Measures in such Cases; 'tis enough that I represent the Crime, that I endeavour to dress it up in such Cloaths as are proper to set it forth in. All that is due to a Robber, a Ravisher, and a Murtherer, seems to be due to the Person that is thus guilty; for he manifestly commits all these Crimes, and that in the most intense Degree. 1. He is a Robber, for he vests himself with a legal Claim to the Lady's Estate, by a fraudulent, surreptitious and deceitful Attack, a Feint and Disguise, making himself appear to be what he is not, and taking Possession as a Robber; being quite another Person than him he was supposed to be.

2. is a Ravisher of the worst Kind, because he possesses the Person and Honour of the Lady by Fraud, and in a Circumstance, which if she was acquainted with, she would never submit to, but by the utmost Violence, and perhaps would much rather chuse to be murthered than to be so used.

3. conclude: He is a Murtherer, and that in the most horrid Method of Murther that can be imagined. I need go no farther to describe the Case, than is done in an Example given in this very Work, Page 177. where the Tragedy was lamentable indeed.

now can be esteemed a Punishment equal to this Crime? And why might it not be called a righteous Law to punish with Death a Man, that, deceiving a Woman in Marriage, should bring to her a Body infected with the foul Disease, and give it his Wife, it being