Satires and miscellaneous poetry and prose :: :: University of Virginia Library

Adam, who was but accessary to 's Wife,
Was damn'd to dig and drudge for't all his life,
While Eve, subornd by the Devil to betray him,
Was sentenc'd but to love, and to obey him,
Which made her Penance, like her Crime, the worse,
Because oblig'd to do it as a Curse,
And he at liberty to love, or hate her,
Upon her good behaviour, or ill nature,
Who is not bound to do it, but at will,
Although she use him e're so well, or ill:
For there's no Slavery so desperate
As to b' impos'd upon to love, or hate.
Hence 'tis, they are no sooner made one Flesh,
And both compounded int' a civil mesh;
But Sexes next become the sole debate,
And which has greater right to this, or that;
Or whether 'tis Obedience, or Dominion
That Man can claim a title to, or Woman,
Untill the Issue has been fairly try'd,
And legally found oftest for the bride,
Who can reduce the most imperious Brave
To be her Drudge, and Utensil, and Slave:
To Husband takes the Idiot during life
And makes him but a Helper to his wife.

The Bodys of all Animals
Are Femals, and the Souls the Males,
That Being Joynd like Man and Wife
Maintaine the Intercourse of Life.

There's forty Femal witches sent to Jail
Condemned and Executed for one Male.

A marrid Man com's nearest to the Dead
And to be Burryd ['s] but to go to Bed.

A Virgin when she works upon a Bed
Do's like a Bird but Build a Nest, to Breed.

212

Birds go a wooing in the Spring and wed
And none but their own Lawful Spouses tread.

A widow do's but Raise up Horns to the dead,
As Antient Jews did Issue in their stead.

For evry widow is but a Reversion
That Brings a Joynter only of her Person.

Illegal Matrimony
Is but a Pagan Ceremony
That in the Team of wedlock yoakes
Illegally an As and Ox.

A whimsy, in which evry one
Believe's he ha's found out the Stone,
The only True Receipt to marry,
And all beside himself miscarry.

One wife did Solomon more Hurt,
Then all the Madams of his Court.

The Credit of the Marriag-bed
Has been so loosly Husbanded,
Men only Deal for Ready money,
And women Sep'rate Alimoney;
And Ladys Errant, for Debauching,
Have better Tearmes, and equal Caution:
And for their Jorney-worke, and Paines,
The Chare-woemen cleare greater Gaines.

If he be a Beast that marrys,
He's one that Rides, as wel as Carry[s];
As Centaures mount at once, and Beare,
And are both Steed, and Cavaliere.

A Bargain Clubd to by a Paire
Of Dealers at a Chinese Faire,
Where hee that want's a wife or money
May give or take in matrimony.

Virgins Marry just as Nuns;
The same thing, the same way Renounce;

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Before th' have wit to understand
The Bold Attempt they take in hand;
Or having stayd, and lost their Tides,
Are out of Season grown for Brides.

And though one wife undid the Devil,
That do's not Prove al others evil.
One Mistress would have made Belpheger
In half the Time as great a Begger.

Some say that Lovers marry,
As Criminals take Sanctuary,
In Prison one another Clap,
Until they finde a way t' escape.

Agree and cleave to one another
Like John Baptista, and his Brother.

The Natural Difference
Of Temper, Humor, wit, and Sense,
And th' endles Cavils they Produce,
Make all their Quiet but a Truce.

Only with their Bodys worship,
For Souls are not Concernd in Courtship.

And yet some strive, as if the Curse
Were not enough, to make it worse.
When Ladys of the Fairst Deserts,
For Virtu, Bewty, wit, and Parts,
Will Squander al away at once
Upon as wonderful Pultrones,
And, though Disfigur'd with French Pock-holes
Th' had got by Playing at Hotcockles
Among so many, none knew who
The Lady was that gave the Blow,
Yet still th' Inhumaner they Prove
Become the Stupider in Love
Who all Inheritances owe
To th' Tenure of the Marriage-vow.

All Sorts of Vot'ries, that profes
To binde themselves Apprentices

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To Heav'n, abjure with solemn vows
Not Cut, and Longtail, but a Spouse,
As th' worst of all Impediments
To hinder their Devout intents.

[Kings]
By Proxy bring the Love Intregue
To Consummation, with one Leg
As Jews Contracted with their Hams
And marry only with their Names,
Espouse a Picture for a Queen
And take their Chance unsight unseen.

To Love, and Honor, and obey
Things, that the Bride may sing, or Say,
And when th' are spoken by the Priest
Take 'em for th' Husband if she list.
Who when th' are virgins and but woo'd
Pass all for Gentle, soft, and Good
But with their wedding cloath[s] and Rings
Degenerat to other things.

The Banes of Matrimony
To Aloes turne all their Honey.

Man brought nothing of his Bliss
But woman, out of Paradise,
No Relique of his former Life
And blest Condition, but his wife
[And] as that life, and Innocence
Did never Part, before, nor since,
All that is left of both, live's now
Contracted in the marriage vow
That all his earthly loss supplys
With everlasting Paradise.
For he who rashly interlopes,
And ventures upon trading Sloops,
Besid the Danger of b'ing fird,
And blown up in the Pink he Hird,
Makes forfeture of all he beares,
And wracks the Title of his Heirs,

215

Of all their Right (but shame) defeats 'em,
And strives t' expose, before he gets 'em.

No virtu can disparage
A modish wit so much as marriage
That scorn it as a Paltry vanity
That has too little Inhumanit[y].

When unequal youth, and Age,
I' th' Banes of Matrimony 'ngage,
All other Matters run as Cross,
When Expectation's at a Losse,
When Feeble Impotent Fruition
Determines, in as Idle wishing.
And all the Sports of Love and Jumbling
Conclude in Miserable Tumbling;
In Driblets cannot pay th' Expence
Of Dunning Due Benevolence,
Until the Doteing Blown-up Lover
Makes all he Ha's to Feoffes over,
To pay th' Arrieres, with Use on Use,
And all from time to time accrew's.

When Love is still behind in Payment,
And turne's Platonique in th' Injoyment:
For Matrimony's a Quietus
To Love, though ever so Impetuous.

Yoaks are understood
But Characters of servitude.

In four hundred yeares, one Dozen
Of Jews produc'd six hundred thousand.

As the Romans drubd mens Bones
To th' Cadences and Moods of Tunes,
And Rack'd a Guilty Criminal
With Fiddle strings through al the Skale,
To shew, that Justice in their state
Was don in Measure, Time, and weight;
Our Ladies, with Inchanting Cords,
They set to more bewitching words,

216

Performe the same, and with the Charm
Their Hearts as wel as eares Disarm—
Those Passionate Croamatique Clamors
Melodious as the Ratling Hammers
By which Philosophers found out
The Alpha-bet, of evry Note
And from the Braying Tones of Asses
Invented Trebles first, and Bases.
Whence Lovers use, in all their Songs,
To treat of nothing but their wrongs,
Delight in Streames, that, as they Glide,
In Purling murmurs vex and Chide.

[Ladies]
Whose Soules weare nothing of their own
But what is Borrowd and put on;
That, like their watches, weare their faces
In delicate Inammeld Cases,
And all their Sense and wit as Tawdry
Except their Native Talent: Bawdry.

Mean while, more By-blows are begot
In Matrimony then without.

Nor can Diseases, though begot
By one, or Both, unty the knot:
For Health and Sicknes b'ing al one
Which both ingagd before, to own;
And are not with their Bodys bound,
To worship only when th' are sound:
The worst that fals can be no more
Then was provided for before.
And when both sides have shard the Hurt,
Who ever did it suffer's for't.

The Giving of the Brid 's as fatall
As Giving Sentence, wounds, or Battle.

'Tis Desperat t' espouse a Fool
And not be able to controll.

For in the Factory of wives,
An Hundred break, for one that thrive's.

217

Andromeda was chain'd t' a Rock
On worse Tearms in the Marriage-yoake
Then but to be Devour'd by a whale,
More Gentle then the Rugged Male.

He was a Man that only Marryd
With Palisados t' arme his Forehead.
For nothing but his easy Head
Was of his Issu, brought to Bed,
As once the Thundrers Pia Mater
Is sayd t' have brought him forth a Daughter.

Sick of a fatal Pleurisy, a Bride,
The desprat'st inflammation of the side.

When Continence and Chastity in Rome
Was such a monstrous Prodigy become,
Suspected Vestals nothing could relieve
Less strange than carry'ing water in a Sieve;
Or, with their Girdles from their Wastes unbound,
Two mighty Ships that had been run on ground,
Which all the Force of Rome in vain before
Had strove to disengage and drag a shore.

So necessary then were all th' Acquests
Of Matrimony to their Interests.
For Fortune had no other way so soon
To set Men either up, or pull them down:
Which all the noblest Romans then were fain
T' assert with marks of Honour, and maintain;
When greatest Magistrates enjoy'd their Peerage
According to their elder dates of Marriage,
And married Men of all the rest took place,
Who had no Wives to shew for't, in the case;
And therefore those that us'd t' adopt their Heirs,
And for their Fathers turn'd their Fatherers,
Ne're ask'd the real Parents, if th' were got
Exactly in the legal Form, or not;
Were bound to nothing else, but that the years
Both of the new made Parents, and their Heirs
Might prove s' agreeable, they might be hop'd
To have begot, as well as to adopt.

218

The Dutch (of course) lay Matrimony by
Like th' extreme Unction, till they come to dye;
And, if they wed within the nick of life,
The Issue's lawful, and the Bride the Wife.
The antient Jews were bound to do the deed,
To raise their nearest Cousin-Germans seed,
Who us'd to father, after they were dead,
And own the Children gotten in their stead.

Birds hatch the Eggs they use to sit upon,
No matter whether th' are, or not, their own;
And make their Cocks themselves to sit, and brood
Upon the young ones, which they never trod.
Whence 'tis, that far more Bye-blows are begot
In Matrimony, than there are without,
As oft as Hedghogs suck the Teats of Cows
And Virgin-Pullets have been clap'd by Crows.

The antient Greeks, the Oracle profest
To be the wisest men of all the rest,
Believ'd the Globe of Earth, the Fire and Water
To be the greatest Deities in Nature,
And those more holy and devout than the others,
That marri'd with their Daughters, and Mothers.

For Matrimony's but a bargain made
To serve the Turns of Interest and Trade;
Not out of Love or kindness, but designs,
To settle Lands and Tenements like Fines;
Where Husbands are but Copy-holds, and Wives
Mere Messuages to have and t' hold for lives.

Marriage either make's or mars
More Certain then Ascendant stars.

An Error that b'ing once Committed
By death alone can be acquitted.

That Bind's the Bridegroom, and the Bride,
I' th' middle like a Fagot ty'd.

219

A thing that's only usd for Forme
Which none that undertake Perform.
No more Concernd then Vouchers are
In what they undertake to Sweare.

A Happines that only Lyes
Amonge the Sottish or the wise
That oversee, or else Prevent
Th' occasions of their Discontent.