to play with them as a more entertaining sort of Monkeys or Parroquets, is all the pleasing Conversation that they are capable of having with them?  For no other Delight can ignorant Women take in the Company of young Children; and if to desire this, is not equitable or just, must it not be concluded, that the greatest part of those, who make the above-mention’d Complaints, do really mean nothing else thereby, but, by a colourable and handsome pretence, to oblige their Wives, either to be less expensive, or to avoid, it may be, the occasions of gaining Admirers which may make them uneasy?  Neither can such, possibly, be presum’d upon any Principle of Vertue, to disapprove those ways of anothers spending their Time, or Mony, which themselves will either upon no consideration forbear; or else do so only, from a preference of things as little, or yet less reasonable; as Drinking, Gaming, or Lew’d Company.  Such Persons of both Sexes as These, are indeed but fit Scourges to chastise each others Folly; and they do so sufficiently, whilst either restraint on the one side begets unconquerable hatred and aversion; or else an equal indulgence puts all their Affairs into an intire confusion and disorder:  Whence Want, mutual ill Will, Disobedience of Children, their Extravagance, and all the ill effects of neglected Government, and bad Example follow; till they make such a Family a very Purgatory to every one who lives in it.  And as the Original cause of all these mischiefs is Peoples not living like rational Creatures, but giving themselves up to the blind Conduct of their Desires and Appetites; so all who in any measure do thus, will accordingly, more or less, create vexation to each other, because it is impossible that they should ever be at ease, or contented in their own Minds.

There being then so very few reasonable People in the World, as are, that is to say, such who indeavour to live conformably to the Dictates of Reason, submitting their Passions and Appetites to the Government and Direction of that Faculty which God has given them to that end; what wonder can it be that so few are happy in a Marry’d Estate?  And how little cause is there to charge their Infelicity, as often is done, upon this Condition, as if it were a necessary Consequence thereof?

The necessities of a Family very often, and the injustice of Parents sometimes, causes People to sacrifice their Inclinations, in this matter, to interest; which must needs make this State uneasy in the beginning to those who are otherways ever so much fitted to live well in such a Relation; yet scarce any vertuous and reasonable Man and Woman who are Husband and Wife, can know that it is both their Duty and Interest (as it is) reciprocally to make each other Happy without effectually doing so in a little time.  But if no contrary Inclination obstruct this Felicity, a greater cannot certainly be propos’d, since Friendship has been allow’d by the wisest, most vertuous, and most generous Men