“Why then are we mistaken, as if we intended not equal advantages in our commonwealth to either sex, because we would not have women’s fortunes consist in that metal which exposes them to cutpurses? If a man cuts my purse I may have him by the heels or by the neck for it; whereas a man may cut a woman’s purse, and have her for his pains in fetters. How brutish, and much more than brutish, is that commonwealth which prefers the earth before the fruits of the womb? If the people be her treasure, the staff by which she is sustained and comforted, with what justice can she suffer them, by whom she is most enriched, to be for that cause the most impoverished? And yet we see the gifts of God, and the bounties of heaven in fruitful families, through this wretched custom of marrying for money, become their insupportable grief and poverty. Nor falls this so heavy upon the lower sort, being better able to shift for themselves, as upon the nobility or gentry. For what avails it in this case, from whence their veins have derived their blood; while they shall see the tallow of a chandler sooner converted into that beauty which is required in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may have but £1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command? And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion than she has. Who is hurt in this case?--nay, who is not benefited? If the agrarian gives us the sweat of our brows without diminution; if it prepares our table; if it makes our cup to overflow, and above all this, in providing for our children, anoints our heads with that oil which takes away the greatest of worldly cares; what man, that is not besotted with a covetousness as vain as endless, can imagine such a constitution to be his poverty? Seeing where no woman can be considerable for her portion, no portion will be considerable with a woman; and so his children will not only find better preferments without his brokage, but more freedom of their own affections. “We are wonderful severe in laws, that they shall not marry without our consent, as if it were care and tenderness over them; but is it not lest we should not have the other £1,000 with this son, or the other £100 a year more in jointure for that daughter? These, when we are crossed in them, are the sins for which we water our couch with tears, but not of penitence. Seeing whereas it is a mischief beyond any that we can do to our enemies, we persist to make nothing of breaking the affection of our children. But there is in this agrarian a homage to pure and spotless love, the consequence whereof I will not give for all your romances. An alderman makes not his daughter a countess till he has given her £20,000, nor a romance a considerable