The Ten Pleasures of Marriage: and the Second Part, The Confession of the New Married CoupleMarsh, A.
General
The Ten Pleasures of Marriage: and the Second Part, The Confession of the New Married Couple
Marsh, A.
Marriage
_To be a lover of such houses,
Makes him to think of other Spouses._
If he be covetous of honour, he hath several other Vertues.
Hate a Gamester like the Plague; for they are consumers of all; nay
their very gain is loss.
Abhor a person of no imploy, or gadder along the streets; for they are
fit for nothing.
If you marry, shew all honour, respect, and love to your husband.
Indeavour not to Lordize over him; because that, both by Heaven and
nature is given unto him.
In so doing, you will have, as well as our new-married Couple, the
expectation of a happy match; which though it falls out well, yet is
subject to severall accidental corruptions; as you will perceive in
the further Confession of the insuing Pleasures, even as if they were
a Looking-glass.
THE SEVENTH PLEASURE.
_The bad times teaches the new married Couple. Makes them brave
housekeepers. They take in Lodgers, and give good examples to their
Children._
It was formerly very pleasant living, when Trading and Merchandizing
flourished so nobly, that every evening people were fain to carry a
whole drawer full of mony out of the Counter in to the Counting-house;
and then the good woman had alwaies two or three hours work to sort
it, before they could so much as think of going to bed: but it seems
that destructive War, as being a scourge from Heaven, for our
dissatisfied Spirits; hath so lamentably humbled the Land of our
Nativity, that there are very few who have not now just causes enough
to complain.
And you, O young people, shall be witnesses hereof, who have already,
in that short time that you have been married, experience that things
do not alwaies run upon wheels so merrily as was expected. 'Tis true
you possess the Pleasure of an indifferent Trade, as well as the rest
of your Neighbours; but it is not in any measure to be compared with
those golden daies that your Ancestors had, when they could lay up so
much wealth, and yet complained they had but little custom.
[Illustration: 135 _Published by The Navarre Society, London._]
Verily, when I rightly consider it, methinks you are happier then they
were. For at that time all their delight was, by a covetous frugality,
to reap much riches together, and though that hapned very well, yet
there was never enough; for mony is no impediment to a covetous soul
because it alwaies yearns for more. But now on the contrary, it is
esteemed to be very nobly done, and people take an absolute delight in
it, if they can but tell how to scrape so much together, that they may
keep the Dunners from their dores, bring up their children
indifferently well, and pay the taxations and impositions that are
imposed upon them. In good truth, they that can do this now, are
worthy of as much credit and reputation, as those were that prospered
much in former daies; and their Pleasure ought not to be lesser then
the others before was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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