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
But yet all this doth not help the young woman. Perhaps all these
remedies may be good, saith the Grand-Mother but they are not for our
turns; for alas a day, the very smell of salve makes her fall into a
swoon; neither can she suffer the least motion of sucking, for the
very pain bereaves her of her sences. What shall we do then? to keep a
Wet-Nurse is both very damageable, and cruel chargeable; for
Wet-Nurses are generally very lazy and liquorish, and they are ever
chatting and chawing something or other with the Maids; and in their
manner they baptize it, with saying it is very necessary & wholesom
for the Child. And then again, to put the Child out to Nurse, hath
also several considerations; first it estrangeth much from you, and
who knows how ill they may keep it. Therefore it is best to keep it at
home, and indeavour the bringing of it up with the Spoon, feeding it
often with some pure and cordial diets fit for the appetite, and now
and then giving it the sucking bottle.
But what remedy now? this is all to no purpose: For though the
Grandmother, Nurse, and Ant do what they can, yet all their labour's
lost. And the Child is so froward and peevish, that the Nurse is ready
to run away from it; nay, though she dandle and play with it alwaies
till past midnight, it is but washing the Black-a-more; in so much
that a Wet-Nurse must be sought for, or away goes the Child to
_Limbo_. For this again is required good advice, and the chusing of a
good one hath its consideration: But the tender heartedness and kind
love that the Mother hath for her Child can no way suffer this, she
will rather suck it her self though the pain be never so great. Yet
having tried it again a second time, the pain is so vehement that it
is impossible to withstand it; therefore the new Father cannot be at
quiet till there be a Wet-Nurse found and brought to them. For it goes
to the very heart of both Father and Mother to put the Child out to
Nurse.
And do but see after much seeking and diligent inquiring, the new made
Grandmother, hath at last found one, who is a very neat cleanly and
mighty modest woman, her husband went a little while ago to the
_East-Indies_, & her child died lately.
This is no small joy but an extraordinary Pleasure, both for the new
Father, and Child-bed woman. Oh now their hearts are at rest. And now
all things will go well; for as the Wet-Nurse takes care of the Child;
the dry Nurse doth of the Mother, & all this pleases the good Father
very well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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