CAPT. Faith, madam, it is our care of them. Why, you see they are married at fourteen, yield a crop and a half, and then die: 'tis merely their love that destroys 'em; for if they get a good husbandman, the poor things yield their very hearts. PLEA. And do you blame their loves, gentlemen? JOLLY. No, not their love, but their discretion; let them love, and do, a God's name, but let them do with discretion. WILD. But how will you amend this? JOLLY. Instead of two beds and a physician, I'd have the state prescribe two wives and a mistress. WILD. Ho! it will never be granted: the state is made up of old men, and they find work enough with one. JOLLY. We will petition the lower house; there are young men, and (if it were but to be factious) would pass it, if they thought the upper house would cross it; besides, they ought to do it. Death! they provide against cutting down old trees, and preserving highways and post-horses, and let pretty wenches run to decay. CARE. Why may it not come within the statute of depopulation? As I live, the state ought to take care of those pretty creatures. Be you judge, madam: is't not a sad sight to see a rich young beauty, with all her innocence and blossoms on, subject to some rough rude fellow, that ploughs her, and esteems and uses her as a chattel, till she is so lean, a man may find as good grass upon the common, where it may be she'll sit coughing with sunk eyes, so weak that a boy (with a dog) that can but whistle, may keep a score of them? WID. You are strangely charitable to our sex on a sudden! CAPT. I know not what they are; but, for my part, I'll be a traitor, ere I'll look on and see beauty go thus to wreck. It is enough custom has made us suffer them to be enclosed. I am sure they were created common, and for the use of man, and not intended to be subject to jealousy and choler, or to be bought or sold, or let for term of lives or years, as they are now, or else sold at outcries:[230] _Oh yes! who'll give most, take her._ WID. Why do not some of you excellent men marry, and mend all these errors by your good example? JOLLY. Because we want fortunes to buy rich wives or keep poor ones, and be loth to get beggars or whores, as well as I love 'em. PLEA. Why, are all their children so that have no fortune, think you?