Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (5).pdf/19

Rh looking-glass, that answers in all properties to the face that stands before it: Or like an echo that returneth the voice it receiveth. Many marriages are like putting new wine into old bottles. An old man is not a meet help for a young woman: He that sets a grey head upon green shoulders, hath one foot in the grave, and another in the cradle. Yet how many times do you see the spring of youth wedded to the winter of old age? A young man is not an help meet for an old woman; raw flesh is but an ill platter for rotten bones. He that in his nonage marries a woman in her dotage, his lust hath one wife in possession, but his love another in reversion.

2. In the heraldry of her condition. Some of our European nations are so strict in their junctions, that it is against their laws for the commonalty to couple with the gentry

It was well said by one, If the wife be too much above her husband, she either ruins him by her vast expences, or reviles him with her base reproaches: If she be too much below her husband, either her former condition makes her too generous; or her present mutation makes her too imperious.

Marriages are styled matches; yet amongst these many that are married, how few are there that are matched! Husbands and wives are like locks and keys, that rather break than open, except the wards be answerable.

3. In the holiness of their religion. If adultery may separate a marriage contracted, idolatry may hinder a marriage not perfected.