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ject of Ridicule and Jest, came up to this at last, that she could do nothing that would please him; but, in short, every thing that his Wife did was to be laught at, because his Wife was to be laught at.
This is the familiarity which the Proverb says breed Contempt, and it does so; for Men presently jest away their Respect for their Wives, and after that their Affection; though Ceremony between Man and Wife lessens Affection, or rather shews it was wanting before, yet Affection does by no means lessen Civility, Ceremony may lessen Affection, but Disrespect murthers it, strangles it. A Man can never pretend to love his Wife and have no Respect for her at the same time; that would be to love her, and not to love her altogether, which is incongruous in its Nature.
Mirth between a Husband and Wife is the heighth of Affection, but that's no Mirth that is always running down, bantering and playing the Buffoon with his Wife; a chearful Affection is the Beauty of a conjugal State; but what Chearfulness is there in making a Banter and Jest of one another, what Mirth when they make game, not with one another only, but at one another.
It is really an odd kind of Conversation between a Man and his Wife, when they come into publick Company, to have them turn their Drollery one upon another, and run out in Banters against themselves; the World will not fail to make a Jest of those who first make a Jest of themselves, and to take all the Jokes, Turns and Returns which they pass upon one another, to be founded upon Fact, and that every Jest so rais'd is a true Jest; in short, 'tis a
