Marriages are Govern’d, rather by an Over-ruling Fatality, then by any
Solemnity of Choice and Judgment; though ’tis a Hard Matter to find
out a Woman, even at the Best, that’s of a Just Scantling for her Age,
Person, Humour, and Fortune to make a Wife of. This Fable presents us
with One single Disparity that is of it self Sufficient, without a more
then Ordinary Measure of Virtue and Prudence, to make a Man Miserable and
Ridiculous. I speak of a Disparity of Years, which, in the Moral, takes
in all Other Disproportions. The One’s too _Young_, T’other too _Old_;
to shew us that Marriage is out of Season if it does not Hit the very
Critical Point betwixt them. ’Tis much with Wedlock, as it is with our
Sovereign Cordials and Antidotes. There go a Thousand Ingredients to the
making of the Composition: But then it they be not Tim’d, Proportion’d,
and Prepar’d according to Art, ’tis a Clog to us rather then a Relief.
So that it would have been Well, if Nature had Prescrib’d the _Dos_ of
Woman’s Flesh, as she has Determin’d the _Necessity_ of it.