Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/165

CHAP. XIII.

Mrs. Bull's vindication of the indispensable duty of cuckoldom, incumbent upon wives in case of the tyranny, infidelity, or insufficiency of husbands: being a full answer to the doctor's sermon against adultery^[1].

JOHN found daily fresh proofs of the infidelity and bad designs of his deceased wife; among other things, one day looking over his cabinet, he found the following paper.

IT is evident that matrimony is founded upon an original contract, whereby the wife makes over the right she has by the law of nature to the concubitus vagus, in favour of the husband; by which he acquires the property of all her posterity. But then, the obligation is mutual: and where the contract is broken on one side, it ceases to bind on the other. Where there is a right, there must be a power to maintain it, and to punish the offending party. The power I affirm to be that original right, or rather that indispensable duty of cuckoldom, lodged in all wives in the cases abovementioned. No wife is bound by any law, to which herself has not consented: all economical government is lodged originally in the husband and wife, the executive part being in the husband; both have their privileges secured to them by law and rea-

1. The tories representation of the speeches of Sacheverell's trial.

son;