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of Violences, as I may call them, committed, likes Rapes upon Nature, in which nothing is more frequent than for a Husband to press a Wife to such and such Things as Morality and Modesty forbids.
This is highly injurious to the conjugal Affection, and exposes the Person guilty to a just Censure, nay, even to the Censure mentioned of Matrimonial Whoredom. Whether these Excesses or Violences consist in Negatives, or in Affirmatives, they are in their kind equally criminal.
It must be confessed that Language is wanting here, and Words cannot fully express the meaning, so as to preserve the Decency I profess; and I may be asked what I mean when I cannot explain it, not for want of knowing my own meaning, but for want of Words to express it; and therefore, as above, I choose to be silent, 1'11 come as near the Case as I can without giving offence, and what cannot be said with Decency must be omitted; I had said, that personal Weaknesses and Infirmities on either Side ought not to be retorted between a Man and his Wife, much less exposed, so I now say, they much less ought to be oppress'd on that Account.
N. B. I am speaking now, not of natural and original Impotencies, which, being before Marriage, ought to have been discovered, and which our Law makes sufficient to dissolve the Contract, and separate the Persons.
There has been foul Work enough made with these Things in print by particular, lewd, and obscene Publications, which modest Ears are sick of, and the Nation mourns for the Offence of it; but my Discourse looks quite another Way.
Be-
