er.

Marriage is sometimes made a matter of mere convenience; people enter
into it with as much indifference as they would into any other
speculation, and when one companion dies they take another. In the book
of Tobit we have an account of Sara, the daughter of Raguel, who had
been favored with seven husbands, whom "Asmodeus the evil spirit had
killed." Love must be exceedingly pliable, it must be love to man, and
not to a man, that would suffer a woman to transfer her affections seven
times. It would be a ludicrous occurrence, if, upon any particular
occasion, a man's three or four wives, or a woman's three or four
husbands, should "burst their cerements," and visit their former
dwelling. What astonishment! What uplifted hands and distended
eyeballs! What speechlessness and violent speeches,--reproaches and
animosities! When the Duke of Rutland was Viceroy of Ireland, Sir John
Hamilton attended one of his Grace's levees. "This is timely rain," said
the Duke, "it will bring every thing above ground."--"I hope not, my
Lord," replied Sir John, "for I have three wives there." Marriage may be
well extended to two wives and two husbands in succession; this, in some
cases, is necessary; but when it goes to three or four it is
objectionable. The man who moves from place, sometimes living here and
sometimes there, will never gain a pure and ardent love of home; by the
same rule, a succession of wives will only induce an habitual or
mechanical regard to the wife for the time being; in the same way as
loyalty may be transferred from one sovereign to another. Besides, a
family with different degrees of relationship and with different
interests is formed, and this contributes nothing towards domestic
tranquillity. There may be some particular cases in which the evils to
which we have alluded may not arise; these may be deemed exceptions.

There are some sorrows peculiar to matrimony; and some which, though
they fall on other conditions of life, are felt more heavily when they
intrude themselves within the boundary of connubial love. Poverty and
sickness are more grievous evils under circumstances of this sort;
because a man feels not only for himself, but for others. How dreadful
must it be when the husband beholds his wife in squalid misery. What are
the feelings of a mother when she sees her innocent children suffering
from hunger! And when the iron hand of affliction presses upon the brow
of a husband or a wife, and the sharp