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Tea-Tables and Assemblies round about; the poor Drudge, who she has taken into pay, is pitied by every Body; and the Town where he lives, it is doubted, will make a Bonfire, when she is pleased to walk off, and congratulate him by all the Methods suitable to the Sense of his Deliverance.
When an old Man of seventy or eighty marries a young Girl of twenty, we have generally some Game among the common People about it. But here there may not be so much room for Scandal, because it has often happened, that Men have had Children at a very great Age; and there may be extraordinary Reasons for them to desire Children; as particularly for the enjoying Estates, to which they have no Heirs. But be the Reasons what they will, the Thing is unquestioned because lawful, and the having Children is possible; so that the great End and Reason of Matrimony is not destroyed.
But what shall we say when two antient People, the Woman past Children, and the Man also: What do these join together for? And which of the Ends of Matrimony are to be answered in their Conjunctions? I observe, the World are generally reconciled to those Matches because of the Parity of Circumstances; and they ordinarily express themselves thus: Well, let them marry, there's no great disproportion in their Age; ay, ay, why should they not marry? they are very well match'd, the Man's almost Threescore, and the Woman is not much less, they'll do very well together; so there's little or no Scandal rais'd here, I mean, in the Mouths of the common Censurers of such Things.
But
