Numb. 45. Tuesday, August 21, 1750.
Ἥπερ μεγίστη γίγνεται σωτηρία,
Ὅταν γὐνὴ πρὸς ἄνδρα μὴ διχοστατῆ.
This is the chief felicity of life,
That concord smile on the connubial bed;
But now 'tis hatred all———
To the RAMBLER.
- SIR,
THOUGH, in the dissertations which you have given us on marriage, very just cautions are laid down against the common causes of infelicity, and the necessity of having, in that important choice, the first regard to virtue, is carefully inculcated; yet I cannot think the subject so much exhausted, but that a little reflection would present to the mind many questions, in the discussion of which great numbers are interested, and many precepts which deserve to be more particularly and forcibly impressed.
You seem, like most of the writers that have gone before you, to have allowed, as an uncontested principle, that Marriage is generally unhappy: but I know not whether a man who professes to think for himself and concludes from his own observations, does not depart from his character when he follows the crowd thus implicitly, and receives maxims without recalling them to a new examination, especially when they comprise so wide a circuit of life, and include such a variety of circumstances. As I have an equal right with others to
