Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/123

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but what is not fit to name without it; 'tis all scandalous and shameful; and so we called up other Discourse; for I had enough of it, and the Lady fell into Tears, and yet she confess'd all the Fault was her own too.

And what generally speaking is the End of such preposterous Conjunctions as this was, but a Birth of Monsters? Pardon me, I don't mean that the Children born between them shall be Monsters in shape, imperfect, unfinish'd, wanting their Limbs, or with more Limbs than Nature directs, as in many monstrous Births is the Case; though I could say some pertinent Things upon that Subject too, if the Age could bear it: But my meaning is, these Conjunctions generally break out in monstrous Consequences; Family Confusions, violent Contentions, unsufferable Passions, raging at one another in vile Language, Quarrels, Feuds, Fightings, or at least Insultings of one another; in all which they act Furious, as in their original Gusts of another kind, reproaching themselves with that very criminal Part which brought them together, upbraiding one another with the very Things which threw them precipitantly into one another's Arms, from whence proceeded the Ruin they bear. These, and a thousand monstrous Passions, ungoverned like the Fire of their early, blind and hasty Desires, are the Effects of that preposterous Matrimony that is contracted upon such Foundations as these.

How is it possible any thing but this, or such as this, can be the Issue, since when the first Desires are gratified, Dislikes and Aversions, hateful Regret and Repentings, as naturally succeed such Corrupt and half-bornLove;