wife on hers, "to obey, ferve, love, honour, "and keep her husband;" in every variety of health, fortune, and condition; and both ftipulate "to forfake all others, and to keep only

unto one another, fo long as they both fhall "live." This promife is called the marriage vow; is witneffed before God and the congregation; accompanied with prayers to Almighty God for his bleffing upon it; and attended with fuch circumstances of devotion and folemnity, as place the obligation of it, and the guilt of violating it, nearly upon the fame foundation with that of oaths.

The parties by this vow engage their perfonal fidelity exprefsly and specifically: they engage likewise to confult and promote each other's happinefs; the wife, moreover, promifes obedience to her husband. Nature may have made and left the fexes of the human fpecies nearly equal in their faculties, and perfectly fo in their rights; but to guard against thofe competitions which equality, or a contested fuperiority is almost sure to produce, the Chriflian fcriptures enjoin upon. the wife that obedience which fhe here promises, and in terms fo peremptory and abfolute, that it feems to extend to every thing not criminal, or not entirely inconfiftent with the woman's happincfs.

Z 3

piness. "Let the wife," fays St. Paul," be fub

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ject to her own husband in every thing." "The ornament of a meek and quiet fpirit "(fays the fame Apoftle, speaking of the duty "of wives) is in the fight of God of great price." No words ever expreffed the true merit of the female character fo well as these.

The condition of human life will not permit us to say, that no one can conscientiously marry who does not prefer the perfon at the altar to all other men or women in the world: but we can have no difficulty in pronouncing (whether we refpect the end of the inftitution, or the plain terms in which the contract is conceived), that whoever is confcious, at the time of his marriage, of such a diflike to the woman he is about to marry, or of such a fubfifting attachment to fome other woman, that he cannot reafonably, nor does in fact, expect ever to entertain an affection for his future wife, is guilty, when he pronounces the marriage vow, of a direct and deliberate prevarication; and that too, aggravated by the presence of those ideas of religion, and of the Supreme Being, which the place, the ritual, and the folemnity of the occafion, cannot fail of bringing to his thoughts. The fame likewife of the woman. This charge must be imputed

puted to all, who, from mercenary motives, marry the objects of their aversion and disgust; and likewise to those who defert, from any motive whatever, the object of their affection, and, without being able to fubdue that affection, marry another.

The crime of falsehood is also incurred by the man, who intends, at the time of his marriage, to commence, renew, or continue a perfonal commerce with any other woman. And the parity of reason, if a wife be capable of so much guilt, extends to her.

The marriage vow is violated,

I. By adultery.

II. By any behaviour, which, knowingly, renders the life of the other miferable; as defertion, neglect, prodigality, drunkenness, peevishness, penurioufnefs, jealoufy, or any levity of conduct, which administers occasion of jealoufy.

A late regulation in the law of marriages, in this country, has made the confent of the father, if he be living, of the mother, if fhe fur

vive the father, and remain unmarried, or of guardians, if both parents be dead, necessary to the marriage of a perfon under twenty-one years of age. By the Roman law, the confent et avi et patris was required fo long as they lived. In France, the confent of parents is neceffary to the marriage of fons, until they attain to thirty years of age; of daughters, until twenty-five. In Holland, for fons, till twenty-five; for daughters, till twenty. And this diftinction between the fexes appears to be well founded, for a woman is usually as properly qualified for the domeftic and interior duties of a wife or mother at eighteen, as a man is for the business of the world and the more arduous care of providing for a family, at twenty-one.

The conflitution alfo of the human fpecies indicates the fame diftinction*.

* Cum vis prolem procreandi diutiùs hæreat in mare quam in fœminâ, populi numerus nequaquam minuetur, fi feriùs venerem colere inceperint viri.

СНАР.

CHAP. IX.

OF THE DUTY OF PARENTS.

HAT virtue, which confines its bene

TH

ficence within the walls of a man's own house, we have been accustomed to confider as little better than a more refined selfishness; and yet it will be confeffed, that the fubject and matter of this clafs of duties are inferior to none, in utility and importance: and where, it may be afked, is virtue the most valuable, but where it does the most good? What duty is the most obligatory, but that, on which the most depends? And where have we happiness and mifery fo much in our power, or liable to be so affected by our conduct, as in our own families? It will alfo be acknowledged, that the good order and happiness of the world are better upheld, whilft each man applies himself to his own concerns and the care of his own family, to which he is prefent, than if every man, from an excess of mistaken gencrofity, fhould leave his own bufinefs,

to