depend upon it that was not my case, nor any part of my case. Why then, said he, as to the other, I have an offer to make to you that shall take off all the objection, viz., that I will not touch one pistole of your estate more than shall be with your own voluntary consent, neither now or at any other time, but you shall settle it as you please for your life, and upon who you please after your death; that I should see he was able to maintain me without it; and that it was not for that that he followed me from Paris. I was indeed surprised at that part of his offer, and he might easily perceive it; it was not only what I did not expect, but it was what I knew not what answer to make to. He had, indeed, removed my principal objection, nay, all my objections, and it was not possible for me to give any answer; for if upon so generous an offer I should agree with him, I then did as good as confess that it was upon the account of my money that I refused him; and that though I could give up my virtue, and expose myself, yet I would not give up my money, which, though it was true, yet was really too gross for me to acknowledge, and I could not pretend to marry him upon that principle neither. Then as to having him, and make over all my estate out of his hands, so as not to give him the management of what I had, I thought it would be not only a little Gothic and inhuman, but would be always a foundation of unkindness between us, and render us suspected one to another; so that upon the whole I was obliged to give a new turn to it, and talk upon a kind of an elevated strain, which really was not in my thoughts at first, at all; for I own, as above, the divesting myself of my estate, and putting my money out of my hand, was the sum of the matter that made me refuse to marry; but, I say, I gave it a new turn upon this occasion, as follows: I told him, I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free agent, as well as a man, and was born free, and could she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do; that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this time acted quite upon other principles; and those such that a woman gave herself entirely away from herself, in DIFFER IN OUR NOTIONS OF MATRIMONY. 129 marriage, and capitulated only to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man, she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who had his ears bored, that is, nailed to the door-post, who by that act gave himself up to be a servant during life. That the very nature of the marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after, that is to say, a slave. He replied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I ought to consider that as an equivalent to this, the man had all the care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon his shoulders, and as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and look around her, be waited on and made much of, be served and loved, and made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection without the thing; and if, in inferior families, they had the drudgery of the house, and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had, indeed, much the easier part; for in general, the women had only the care of managing, that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman had the name of subjection, indeed, but that they generally commanded, not the men only, but all they had; managed all for themselves; and where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make all that were about her both easy and merry. I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had, and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none, and was in subjection to none: so I sung these two lines of Mr. VOL. IV. "O! 'tis pleasant to be free, K I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit to govern and enjoy her own estate, without a man, as a man was without a woman; and that if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus single she was her own, and if she gave away that power, she merited to be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be. All he could say could not answer the force of this as to argument, only this, that the other way was the ordinary method that the world was guided by; that he had reason to expect I should be content with that which all the world was contented with; that he was of the opinion, that a sincere affection between a man and his wife answered all the objections that I had made about the being a slave, a servant, and the like; and where there was mutual love there could be no bondage, but that there was but one interest, one aim, one design, and all conspired to make both very happy. Ay, said I, that is the thing I complain of. The pretence of affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim, and view, of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke of, said I. She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and living by faith (not in God, but) in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is either fool or wise man, unhappy or prosperous; and in the middle of what she thinks is her happiness and prosperity, she is engulphed in misery and beggary, which she had not the least notice, knowledge, or suspicion of. How often have I seen a woman living in all the splendour that a plentiful fortune ought to allow her! with her coaches and equipages, her family and rich furniture, her attendants and friends, her visitors and good company, all about her to-day; to-morrow surprised with a disaster, turned out of all by a commission of bankrupt, stripped, to the clothes on her back; her jointure, suppose she had it, is sacrificed to the creditors, so long as her husband lived, and she turned into the street, and left to live on the charity of her friends, if she has any, or follow the monarch, her husband, into the Mint, and live there 07 INTERESTING DISCOURSE ON MATRIMONY. 131 the wreck of his fortunes, till he is forced to run away from her, even there; and then she sees her children starve, herself miserable, breaks her heart, and cries herself to death! This, says I, is the state of many a lady that has had ten thousand pounds to her portion. He did not know how feelingly I spoke this, and what extremities I had gone through of this kind: how near I was to the very last article above, viz., crying myself to death; and how I really starved for almost two years together. But he shook his head, and said, Where had I lived? and what dreadful families had I lived among, that had frighted me into such terrible apprehensions of things? that these things indeed might happen where men run into hazardous things in trade, and without prudence or due consideration, launched their fortunes in a degree beyond their strength, grasping at adventures beyond their stocks, and the like; but that, as he was stated in the world, if I would embark with him, he had a fortune equal with mine; that together we should have no occasion of engaging in business any more, but that in any part of the world where I had a mind to live, whether England, France, Holland, or where I would, we might settle, and live as happily as the world could make any one live; that if I desired the management of our estate, when put together, if I would not trust him with mine, he would trust me with his; that we would be upon one bottom, and I should steer. Ay, says I, you'll allow me to steer, that is, hold the helm, but you'll con the ship, as they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but he that gives him the orders is pilot. He laughed at my simile; No, says he, you shall be pilot then, you shall con the ship. Ay, says I, as long as you please, but you can take the helm out of my hand when you please, and bid me go spin. It is not you, says I, that I suspect, but the laws of matrimony puts the power into your hands, bids you do it, commands you to command, and binds me, forsooth, to obey; you, that are now upon even terms with me, and I with you, says I, are the next hour set up upon the throne, and the humble wife placed at your footstool: all the rest, all that you call oneness of interest, mutual affection, and the like, is courtesy and kindness then, and a woman is indeed infinitely obliged where she meets with it, but can't help herself where it fails. Well, he did not give it over yet, but came to the serious part, and there he thought he should be too many for me; he first hinted that marriage was decreed by heaven; that it was the fixed state of life, which God had appointed for man's felicity, and for establishing a legal posterity; that there could be no legal claim of estates by inheritance, but by children born in wedlock; that all the rest was sunk under scandal and illegitimacy; and very well he talked upon that subject indeed. But it would not do; I took him short there. Look you sir, said I, you have an advantage of me there indeed, in my particular case; but it would not be generous to make use of it. I readily grant that it were better for me to have married you, than to admit you to the liberty I have given you; but as I could not reconcile my judgment to marriage, for the reasons above, and had kindness enough for you, and obligation too much on me to resist you, I suffered your rudeness, and gave up my virtue; but I have two things before me to heal up that breach of honour without that desperate one of marriage, and those are, repentance for what is past, and putting an end to it for time to come. He seemed to be concerned to think that I should take him in that manner; he assured me that I misunderstood him, that he had more manners as well as more kindness for me, and more justice than to reproach me with what he had been the aggressor in, and had surprised me into. That what he spoke referred to my words above, that the woman, if she thought fit, might entertain a man, as a man did a mistress; and that I seemed to mention that way of living as justifiable, and setting it as a lawful thing, and in the place of matrimony. Well, we strained some compliments upon those points, not worth repeating; and I added, I supposed when he got to bed to me he thought himself sure of me; and, indeed, in the ordinary course of things, after he had lain with me he ought to think so, but that, upon the same foot of argument which I had discoursed with him upon, it was just the contrary; and when a woman had been weak enough to yield up the last point before wedlock, it would be adding one weakness to another to take the man afterwards, to pin down the shame of it upon herself all the days of her life, and bind herself to live all her time with the only man that could |