I am grown old and have made abundance of Observations,
and I have had three Wives my self; so that from both Experience and
Observation I can say, that this Advice is wrong and untrue in every
Particular. It is wrong to assert _that tis silly in a single Man to
change his State_: For what old Batchelor can die without Regret and
Remorse, when he reflects upon his Death-bed, that the inestimable
Blessing of Life and Being has been communicated by Father to Son
through all Generations from _Adam_ down to him, but in him it stops
and is extinguished; and that _the Humane Race divine_ would be no
more, for any Thing he has done to continue it; he having, like the
wicked Servant, _wrapt up and hid his Talent in a Napkin_, (i. e. his
Shirt Tail,) while his Neighbours the Good and Faithful Servants, had
some of them produced _Five_ and some _Ten._ I say such an one shall
not only die with Regret, but he may justly fear a severe Punishment.
Nor is it true that _assoon as a Man weds, his expected Bliss
dissolves into slavish Cares and Bondage._ Every Man that is really a
Man is Master of his own Family; and it cannot be _Bondage_ to have
another submit to one's Government. If there be any Bondage in the
Case, 'tis the Woman enters into it, and not the Man. And as to the
_Cares_, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children;
and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the
most delightful Cares in the World; and if from that Particular
alone, he does not find the _Bliss_ of a double State much greater,
instead of being less than he expected.
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