If thou art thus uxoriously inclined, To bear thy bondage with a willing mind, Prepare thy neck, and put it in the yoke; But for no mercy from thy woman look. For though, perhaps, she loves with equal fires, To absolute dominion she aspires, Joys in the spoils, and triumphs o'er thy purse; The better husband makes the wife the worse. Nothing is thine to give, or sell, or buy, } All offices of ancient friendship die, } Nor hast thou leave to make a legacy.[118] } By thy imperious wife thou art bereft A privilege, to pimps and panders left; Thy testament's her will; where she prefers } Her ruffians, drudges, and adulterers, } Adopting all thy rivals for thy heirs. } Go drag that slave to death!--Your reason? why Should the poor innocent be doomed to die? What proofs? For, when man's life is in debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.-- Call'st thou that slave a man? the wife replies; Proved, or unproved, the crime, the villain dies. I have the sovereign power to save, or kill, And give no other reason but my will.-- Thus the she-tyrant reigns, till, pleased with change, Her wild affections to new empires range; Another subject-husband she desires; Divorced from him, she to the first retires, While the last wedding-feast is scarcely o'er, And garlands hang yet green upon the door. So still the reckoning rises; and appears In total sum, eight husbands in five years. The title for a tomb-stone might be fit, But that it would too commonly be writ. Her mother living, hope no quiet day; } She sharpens her, instructs her how to flay } Her husband bare, and then divides the prey. } She takes love-letters, with a crafty smile, And, in her daughter's answer, mends the style. In vain the husband sets his watchful spies; She cheats their cunning, or she bribes their eyes. The doctor's called; the daughter, taught the trick, Pretends to faint, and in full health is sick. The panting stallion, at the closet-door, Hears the consult, and wishes it were o'er. Canst thou, in reason, hope, a bawd so known, Should teach her other manners than her own? Her interest is in all the advice she gives; 'Tis on the daughter's rents the mother lives. No cause is tried at the litigious bar, But women plaintiffs or defendants are; They form the process, all the briefs they write, } The topics furnish, and the pleas indict, } And teach the toothless lawyer how to bite. } They turn viragos too; the wrestler's toil