Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/93

 wondered at, considering the Pretences we now make to polite Conversation.

, 'tis a Breach of Decency as it respects his Wife of the vilest and most scandalous kind, and if she is a modest and virtuous Woman, as well as a good Wife, is sufficient to make her abhor his Society, and to refuse to appear in Company with him, even in his own House, nay, and if continued, will not fail in time to make her hate him, which is the worst Condition an honest Man can ever wish to be in with a Wife.

must be confessed 'tis a wife Man's Business after Matrimony, by all means possible to preserve the Affection of his Wife entire, to engross her to him, and to make and keep himself the single and entire Object of her best Thoughts. If she is once brought to hate him, to have an aversion to him, to loath and abhor him, she must have an uncommon Stock of Virtue, and be more a Christian than he ought to expect of her, if she does not single out some other Object of her Affection; and can a Man think his Wife, who is thus every Day disobliged, in the grossest manner ill used, and, in spite of her Resentments, exposed to be laught at by him, will long preserve an inviolable Affection to him; but I may touch this again.

I return to the Subject. There are yet greater Offences against Modesty than these; As I said above, that giving unjust Retorts, and making unkind and indecent Reproaches in case of casual or accidental Weakness and Impotence, are scandalous Breaches of Modesty between a Man and his Wife. So besides this, there are yet a numberless Variety