Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/283

Rh ministers of state during their power, lawyers and physicians in great practice, persons in such employments as take up the greater part of the day, and perhaps some other conditions of life which I cannot call to mind. Neither must I forget to except all gentlemen of the army, from the general to the ensign; because those qualifications above-mentioned in a wife, are wholly out of their element and comprehension; together with all mathematicians, and gentlemen lovers of musick, metaphysicians, virtuosi, and great talkers, who have all amusements enough of their own. All these put together will amount to a great number of adversaries, whom I shall have no occasion to encounter, because I am already of their sentiments. Those persons whom I mean to include are the bulk of lords, knights, and squires, throughout England, whether they reside between the town and country, or generally in either. I do also include those of the clergy who have tolerably good preferments in London or any other parts of the kingdom.

The most material arguments that I have met with, on the negative side of this great question, are what I shall now impartially report, in as strong a light as I think they can bear.

It is argued, "That the great end of marriage is propagation: that consequently, the principal business of a wife is to breed children, and to take care of them in their infancy: That the wife is to look on her family, watch over the servants, see that they do their work: That she be absent from her house as little as possible: That she is answerable for every thing amiss in her family: That she is to obey all the lawful commands of her husband; and visit Rh