Daniel Defoe

“ Tom. Come, Cousin, Jack, don't mince the Matter. You don't want a Wife, but you want a Woman.
Jack. You are quite out, Tom; you mistake the Matter.
Tom. Well, well, you may call it what you will, but you'll never make the World understand you any otherwise.
Jack. I can't help that; I am to understand for my self. I don't value the World. I tell you, that Part is not so much as in my Head.
Tom. Well, if it is not in your Head, 'tis somewhere else then, I tell you; no Body can, nor ought to take it any otherwise; 'tis a preposterous Thing, 'tis against the Laws of God and Nature. ”

“ How happy is it, and how good has Providence been, in directing human Affairs, that Matrimonial Love is a common Blessing! that the most perfect Enjoyment, and that which alone compleats all Enjoyments, and finishes the Happiness of Life, is an Enclosure laid open by the merciful Disposition of Heaven, for all his Creatures to share of; and the meanest honest Man, who is not press'd with Poverty, is oftentimes as compleatly happy, and always as capable of being so, as the greatest Prince, I mean, as to his conjugal Happiness. ”

“ But the Pleasure of a married State consists wholly in the Beauty of the Union, the sharing Comforts, the doubling all Enjoyments; 'tis the Settlement of Life; the Ship is always in a Storm till it finds this safe Road, and here it comes to an Anchor: 'Tis the want of a taste of Life makes Men despise that Part of it which Heaven at first constituted to compleat the Happiness of his Creatures. ”

“ Shall it be Criminal to reprove the Offence which they think it is not Criminal to commit? Must we Blush to speak of what they will not Blush to do? And must the most detestable Things go on in practice, because we dare not go on to cry them down? God forbid we should by Silence seem to approve that Wickedness, while that Silence is occasioned only because the Wickedness is too gross to be reproved.
Sure our Language is not so barren of Words as that we cannot find out proper Expressions to reprehend an impudent Generation, without Breach of Decency in the Diction ”

“ In a word, the Man and the Woman remains, but the Husband and Wife are loft; the Conjunction holds, but the Union is lost; the Marriage is fixed and fast, but the Matrimony is gone, in a word, there's the Whoredom without the Matrimony, the vitious Part without the virtuous, the humid without the sublime; there's the married Couple without their Souls; their Affections are no more united than the Poles, and like the living and the dead Body I mentioned just now, they are only Bound to one another, that at last they may Rot together. ”

“ Ignorance then of the nature of the Offence, renders the Man in danger of committing it. The Custom of the Country he lives in is a terrible Plea, and he is too apt to cleave to it, and venture upon the Custom; he knows no Law against it, and therefore sees no Crime, no Breach of any Law in the committing it.
How weak is corrupted Nature not to see the Scandal of so really odious and filthy a Practice? And how far is this Ignorance from being an Excuse? ”

“ Says Tom, his grave Friend, to Jack, Pr'ythee, Jack, what's all this I hear of you? Why, you make all your Friends blush for you.
Jack. Blush for me! What do you mean? I don't blush for my self, what need they blush for me?
Tom. Why, you run to every Hole and Corner, to every Church and Meeting-house, Ball, and Assembly, a Wife-hunting, and, as they say, a Fortune-hunting too; that's worse. ”

“ What they say amounts to so little, and that little is so scandalous in its Nature, and sits so ill upon the Tongues of Men of Virtue and Moderation, much less Men of Christianity and Religion, that I blush for them, and conceal it. Nothing requires a more just and severe Censure, except it be the Action they would defend by it.
To say they cannot refrain, is to confess a frailty which Papists and Popish Votaries despise, and pretend to make slight of, nay, which Pagans and Mahometans overcome by the Power of their Religion. ”

“ Take it Matrimonially, take it as it is a Partnership, for Matrimony it self is but a Partnership; though 'tis not a Partnership in Trade, 'tis what is ten thousand times more solemn, 'tis a Partnership in Life, a Partnership of Souls, they are embarked in the same Ship, they go the same Voyage, and, give me leave to say, they swim, they sink, they are happy, they are miserable, they are poor, they are rich, just as they agree, or not agree; Love or Hate, are united or not united ”

“ This is the very Essence of the Crime I am reproving, namely, that the married People look to the Coxcomb's Comforts, not to the real Comforts of a married Life, to the Enjoyments of the Night, not the Enjoyments of the Day; to what's present, not what's to come; and while they do so, no wonder we have such dreadful Family-Doings as we have in the World. ”

“ I am rather directing my Speech to the rational Part of Mankind, who aim at a Happiness in this Life, and understand what it means; who desire to live like Men, and like Christians, and know how to do so; and, for this very Reason would match themselves with such, and such only, as have the like just Notions, and understand what a Life of Enjoyment means, as well as themselves.
To these, I say again, that all Inequalities in a state of Marriage, are as so many Wounds in the Body, which, if left to Nature, will fester and inflame, and, at length, mortify, and be fatal ”

“ These are some of the Disasters where the Love is on one Side without the other. What must then be the Consequences where it is of neither Side? How miserable, how distracted a Family does it make! And in what wretched Doings does it frequently End? To marry without Affection! It seems to be like two Bulls chained together, that being tied so close as that they cannot gore and kill one another, yet are always striving to do it, wishing to do it; and, if they break the Bonds, never fail to bring it to pass. ”

“ So great an Addition is a mutual Affection to the happiness of Life, even in Persons of the highest Rank; it adds a Lustre to their Glory, and is, notwithstanding all other good Circumstances, the brightest Beam in all their illustrious Enjoyments. Such was the Life of two glorious Sisters, the late Queen Mary, and Queen Anne, of whom it is said, and I never heard it contradicted, that they were entire Mistresses of their Royal Consorts Affections, Queens of their Hearts, enjoyed a compleat conjugal Felicity, and furnished back the same Joy, making full Returns in kind. ”

“ To argue against Marriage, because so many Matches are unhappy, and so few exemplify the Case as it ought to be, is only arguing the Ignorance and Corruption of Mankind, which as it is the Cause, so it is fully discovered by this unhappy Consequence. Did Men expect Happiness in a married Condition, they would Begin and End it after another manner, prepare for it beforehand with more nicety, and take much greater Thought about it before they engaged in it. ”

“ Marriage without Love, is the compleatest Misery in Life. Besides, I must say, it is to me utterly unlawful, and entails a Curse upon the Persons, as being wilfully perjured, invoking the Name of God to a Falshood, which is one of the most provoking Crimes that Mankind can commit. He or she who, with that slight and superficial Affection, ventures into the matrimonial Vow, are to me little more than legal Prostitutes: Political Views may make a Marriage, but, in the Sense of God and Nature, 'tis my Opinion they make no Matrimony. ”

“ Where does the kind expecting Husband find a sincere Friend in his Bosom? How seldom does the tender affectionate Wife take a Friend into her Arms, even though she does take the Person, she takes the Man without the Husband, and the Husband without the Friend? Not Virtue, not Fidelity to the Marriage Bed, not Conscience of the Conjugal Duty, not Religion, will do it ”

“ But Man! ungoverned Man! neither influenced by the Laws of God, or of Nature, gives himself a loose to his corrupted Desires, and subjects Nature, Reason, and even Religion it self, to his Appetite; in short, to a corrupted and depraved Appetite, a furious outrageous Gust; his Will governs his Understanding, and his Vice governs his Will; the brutal Part tyrannizes over the Man, and his Reason is over-ruled by his Sense. ”

“ No, no; if you will rush like the Horse into the Battle; if you will be mad, and follow rashly, and without Consideration, the raging heat of corrupt Inclination only, and go hoodwinked and blinded, you must take the Consequences to your selves; if you will wed without Affection, you must be content to live without Affection; if you come madly together, you must expect to live madly together ”

“ A Mortification of the Palate would be an effectual Reformation upon the Life; by a due Regimen of Diet we might bring our selves to be a reformed regular Nation; and I see no other Way ever to bring it to pass.
We are ruined in our Morals by lawful Things; the Excesses in our lawful Enjoyments make them criminal; even our needful Supplies of Life are the ruin of Life. We not only dig our Graves with our Teeth, by mingling our Diseases with our Food, nourishing Distemper and Life together, but we even eat our Way into Eternity, and damn our Souls with our Teeth ”

“ It is not to be done, says the Gentleman, 'tis against Nature. Was ever any Gentleman in love with a Monster? I might pray to God, indeed, to metamorphose her, to turn the Devil into an Angel, Deformity into Beauty, Black into White ”

“ I know too well who I am talking to, and at what Time of Day; how the Subordination of one Sex is laughed at and bantered, and the Dominion of the other abused and turned into Tyranny and Oppression; how the Women, instead of Submission, reign; and the Men, instead of a Government in Love, and a superiority of Affection, in which that Government should chiefly consist, insult and oppress their Wives ”

“ But I am speaking of it now, even where the Article of a bad Husband or a bad Wife are not concerned.
Marriage is an honourable State or Station of Life, but it is not a thoughtless, idle, unemployed State, even where the Concerns of the Family are easy, where Plenty flows, and the World smiles; yet a married Life has its Cares, its Anxieties, its Embarassments, which the young Lady knew nothing of in her Father's House, where she liv'd without Care, without Disturbance, slept without Fear, and wak'd without Sorrows. ”

“ Violence must be suppress'd by Violence; the Torrent must be check'd, and the Man be reduced to the Government of himself, and brought into good Order by proper Powers; for as it is (in short) a Tumult in his Soul, and a Rebellion against the just Dominion of his Reason, so he must use the means Nature has put into his hand to quash and suppress the Rebellion, and chain them down like Galley-Slaves to the Oar, to humble and mortify them. ”

“ These are the great Moving-Wheels in the Machines of rash and unguided Love; the Passion of Love, not the Quality, is the Weight that makes them move; it is the Fuel of Love, not the Flame; the Flame would be pure, were the Materials that feed it pure: But when the Combustibles are nauseous, the Burning scatters noxious Vapours; like the Stink-Pots, which the Turks used to throw into Ships when they Boarded them, which would poison the poor Men out of their close Quarters, and make them run out, though they were sure to be killed. ”