Page:The Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives. Bodleian copy.pdf/32

 an Hour, or he would have her put to Death with Tortures.

The Woman's Body being permitted to be put in conecrated Ground, was of no real Conequence to her; he was removed from all Interet in this World; her irrecoverable Doom was pat where, I fear, the Command of an Huband would not be deem'd a ufficient Apology for o great a Breach of the Laws of her Creator. Nor can any think, that was in Truth and Reality the Cae; for what wore Conequence could have followed from her refuing her Huband, than her own, and her Child's Death? But it was thought agreeable to our Laws that a Wife hould be abolutely at the Command of her Huband, and the Determination was given in Regard to the living, not to the dead.

From hence I mut take the Liberty to aert, that this Exemption of a Wife from Punihment, upon Conideration that he obeys her Huband, never was deigned as a Privilege to Wives, and that it never can be uch in its own Nature, but is a Snare and Tempta-