ON THE PRINCIPLES O.F Happiness and Unhappiness in MARRIAGE. • Hail wedded Love! Myfterious Law! true Source Of human Offspring! fole Propriety * In Paradise, of all Things common else! By thee adult'rous Luft was driv'n from Man Of Father, Son, and Brother, firft were known! 'Here Love his golden Shafts employs, here lights • Cafual Fruition; nor in Court Amours, Mix'd Dance, or wanton Mask, or Midnight Ball, 'Or Serenade, which the starv'd Lover fings, To his proud Fair, beft answer'd with Difdain.' M ARRIAGE is as ancient as the World itfelf, and effential to the Continuance of its Inhabitants; when, I fay, that, without Marriage, H 2 Marriage, this fublunary Scene would foon be closed, it is unquestionably perceived that I take Marriage, in its Generality, for every Union betwixt Persons of a different Sex, whether fuch Union be accompanied with the Formalities to which moft Nations annex the Effence of this Tie, or without them; whether it authorifes Polygamy and Divorce, or prohibits them. All these are only acceffory Circumstances, not proceeding from Nature. This kind Mother has only implanted in us an Inftinct, of all the moft powerful, leading, and often violently plunging us into Connections which, through Paffion, we account a Source of Felicity: And who will not admire the Wisdom of this Inftinct or rather of its Author? Without it where is the Man, fo void of Thought, as to grapple with the Hazards of Marriage; to embark on the most tempeftuous of all Seas; to expofe himself to Difcord, to Want, to the various Troubles interwoven with the bringing up of Children, and fo many other Difgufts and Vexations which are apt to intrude even on the most happy Marriages? Were that Fire, which courfes through our Veins, extinguished throughout the whole Mafs of Mankind, what a Sight! The two Sexes would scarce look at each other; all Intercourse and Con Conversation would, on both Sides, te found infipid and tiresome; for, in Reality, fet afide the machinal Inclination, the two Sexes are not like each other; their Ideas, their Turn of Mind, their Difpofitions, their Pleasures are quite of a different Species. Accordingly, when the Age or the Tafte of foft Connections is over, each Sex is feen to herd with its own; and he who was never happier than in the Company of : Women, because his Heart tended that Way, avoids fuch Occafions, as a real Torture to the Mind, without Delight or Improvement; they are the fame, but the juvenile Paffions are fubfided. In general, however, all Resistance is vain; Nature is ever strongest, and, whilst it has not been gratified in this Article, it feldom fails of fhewing itself in fome laughable or melancholy Sally. They, in my Opinion, are happieft, in whom Nature speaks at the fuitable Season, in their Bloom of Life, which the Creator has certainly intended for the Enjoyment of thofe innocent and lawful Pleasures which present themselves to us. Every thing becomes Youth; many things are out of Character in the Decline, and, in an advanced Age, the Height of Ridicule. Not a few have been known vehemently to declaim against Engagements intirely natural; H 3 tural; Perfons who feemed to have fhook off the Dominion of the Senses, and to lead their Paffions in Chains, yet at length defert their Principles, and, the longer they have withstood the Torrent, the more ardent and precipitate are they for retrieving loft Time. Neither the fuppofed Delicacy of Sentiments, nor the folemn Counfels of Wisdom, can now make Head against the Impulfe of Nature. If this tyrannic Miftrefs but fpeaks, fhe is impatient of so much as the Shadow of Refiftance; we must bend or break, that is, purchase the Victory at the Expence of our Quiet, and with thefe Affaults fhe will daily be harraffing us. I am here told, that there are Perfons who pass their whole Lives in Celibacy; but certain I am, that very few are the Exceptions to the Univerfality of that Instinct. Prove it I dare not, nor make known their Reasons, or Resources; there are Things which only to infinuate is too much. The World, then, marries, and, to do so, the Voice of Nature must be heard above that of Reason, yet is not intirely to stop the Mouth of the latter. From its more or lefs Influence on this capital Step of our Life depend Happiness or Unhappinefs in Marriages, of which I have pro mifed mised to indicate the Principles; and here it is where I properly come to the Point. The Motives of human Actions are fo various, the Combinations fo very different, that to enumerate them would be counting the Drops of the Ocean, or the Sands on the Shore. He who acts, often knows not all the Springs, nor even the true Springs of his Actions; he is the Dupe of fome Illufion, which Time alone lays open. Yet three Things are certain : The First, that every Determination has its Motive; the Second, that there are few fimple Actions, or in which, instead of proceeding from one Motive, there is not a Concurrence of different Caufes: Laftly, the Third, that, among thefe co-efficient Caufes, there is always a predominant Motive, to which the others join, and are obliged to fuit themselves. All then that I can do, not to bewilder myself in the Labyrinth of the human Heart, is to refer to certain general Heads the Reasons determining to Marriage; and which, according to their Weight, afterwards decide the Iffue of this grand Enterprise. I shall not make a separate Class of those whofe Ties are grofs and merely carnal, whom an animal Propenfity brings to the Altar. However deplorable the Fate be to which they infallibly give themselves up, |