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Physick her self from Day to Day, I should make no Wonder at it; 'tis what her Circumstances make not rational only but necessary.
But for an honest Woman! openly and lawfully married! whose Husband is publickly known; who lives with, and acknowledges her to be his Wife, and Beds with her, as we call it, every Night; for this Woman to desire to be Barren, much more to endeavour to prevent, or, which is the same Thing, to destroy the Conception, blast the Fruit of her own Body, poison her Blood, and ruin her Constitution, that she may have no Children! This can have nothing in it but Witchcraft and the Devil; 'tis scandalous to the last Degree; 'tis seeking the Man meerly as such, meerly for the frailer Part, as my Lord Rochester calls it, and that brings it down to my Subject, (viz.) the Lewdness of it, which entitles it, in my Opinion, to that I call Matrimonial Whoredom.
They may gild it over with what Pretences they will; they may use their Female Rhetorick to set it off, and to cover it; such as fear of the Dangers and Pains of a hard Travail, weakness of Constitution, hereditary Miscarriages, and such like. But those Things are all answered with a Question, Why then. Madam, did you marry? Seeing all this was known before, they were as solid Reasons for not marrying, as they can be now for not breeding. But the Lady, as above, would venture all to have the use of the Man; and as for her Reasons why she would have no Children, she must account for them another Way.
Had the Lady been with Child, and had a dangerous Travail, had she been frequentlywith
