Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/96

 said before, account for without Scandal; and to which Men are as frequently subject, and as much disabled by them, as Women are in the Cases mentioned just now; such as Stone, Gout, Palsies, Epilepsies, Rheumaticks, Dropsies, and such like.

either or any of these Circumstances in Man or Woman happens, where they are joined respectively to another that is strong, robust, in perfect vigour, the Spirits high, the Blood hot, and perhaps boiling; Nature forward, and craving Desire unsatisfied; I need go no farther to explain it; What wretched Work does this cause between the ill-match'd Couple? I can openly say I know a beautiful young Lady after bringing her Husband several Children, yet actually destroyed, I might have said murthered, by these conjugal Violences, to say no worse of them; and I make no difference 'tis the same on the other Side; many a Man sinks under the Weight of his own Deficiencies; he is ashamed to decline the Duty of the Marriage-bed, disdains to be thought unable to satisfy, &c.

I can go no farther, and the Reader will excuse the Interruption. I refer you to a stated and acknowledged Declaration in the Case, and which is direct to my purpose; and tho' it is among the Turks, yet the reason of the Practice is not the less or the more. The Turks think this very Case, whether of the Man's Side or the Woman's, to be so weighty, as that it deserves the interposition of Authority; The Grand Visier in Person, where he can be applied to, and in more extraordinary Cases hears the Causes himself; in other Cases the graver Kadeleschers, and Judges determine