Although this marriage is but a civil contract, it should not be forgotten that if injudiciously made or its obligations be not fulfilled, the most calamitous results oftentimes ensue. Imagine a bargain, made between two persons, in which both parties have assumed more or less disguise or dissimulation towards the other, and which are only discovered when the treaty cannot be annulled. The lady’s dower may be handsome, or the gentleman’s prospects good and his pursuits most thriving; their respective families and connexions may be equally respectable, and neither consort nor husband have reason to regret that part of the arrangement, which the world only sees or hears of. It may be a love match, a match of many years’ making, a match in which the most delicious of all anticipations assumed every likelihood of being realized, and yet which one hour’s possession has destroyed. If the denouement be not so sudden, there may grow up a secret sorrow, a sorrow that has its source, like any other feeling, in some cause, just or evil, by the discovery of some concealed hindrance to mutual love. There may arise some justifiable personal dislike, there may be found to exist some impediment to the full and proper enjoyment of those connubial delights which instinct has taught each party to expect from the other. It is true, and well it is so, that all marriages have not hidden griefs, but that renders not those which have, the more endurable. Marriage mostly is a matter of love, policy, or convenience; it ought no less to be a matter of conscience. The legal right which the ceremony gives to the man, of his wife, which alienates her from the world, which enslaves her to his person and passions, or shuts her for ever out from the indulgence of her own, should not be sought without reflection; for although the law awards its punishment for infidelity which is sure to follow such dissimulation, it is a poor compensation for the mortification and distress which accompanies it. The very proceeding may prove alike that nature, as well as honour, have been outraged. Love is not the parent of sexual desire—it is the offspring; and if that instinctive passion be frustrated or deprived of its just entitlement, love soon loses its name, and goes one knows not whither. Yet there are proper bounds to every thing, an excess is frequently attended with more unhappy results than want. The end of marriage, then, is to afford the legitimate use of amative enjoyments; to regulate the procreation of children; to ensure succession, and thereby transmit one’s property and identity; to cultivate domestic happiness, and thereby give all an equal incentive to aspire to the same possession; and also to afford protection when so obtained. If any deception be practiced towards each other the culpable party will incur, sooner or later, the rarely failing punishment—disappointment in their pleasures, their domestic anticipations, and their hopes of hereditary succession.