Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/73

 said thus much by way of advance, I think 'tis necessary to take notice here how just it is, and indispensibly, nay, absolutely necessary to the Happiness of a married Life, that the Persons marrying should have not only an Acquainiance with one another before Marriage, but that they should be engaged to each other by a solid and durable Affection, professing to love, and not only professing but sincerely loving one another, above all other Persons; choosing and being the real choice of each other: This is not a small and trifling thing, it is the chief Article of Matrimony, tho' not included and asserted in the Contract, 'tis a thing of the utmost Consequence to the future Happiness of the Parties. However, as I purpose to speak to it again fully and at large, in a Part by it self, I only leave it here as a Memorandum proper to the Place, and reserve the rest to what shall come after. I return now to the Case of Matrimonial Liberty.

advanced thus much in favour of the utmost Freedoms between Man and Wife, and which I might enlarge upon, but that I believe there is really no Occasion; I think I grant as much in it as I need to do, in Condescension to the Proportion mentioned in the Introduction, namely, that there can be no Offence between a Man and his Wife, that Modesty is at an End, that 'tis cancelled by the very nature of the Thing, that all Things are Decent, all Things modest, all Things lawful between a Man and his Wife; all which, in a few Words, I deny, and insist, that there are several Things yet remaining, which stand as Boundaries and Limits to the Freedoms and Intimacies that are otherwise to be allowed between a Man and his Wife.