Explore "The Religion of Nature Delineated" by William Wollaston on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
This section I shall begin, as relation itself does, with marriage.
I. The end of marriage is the propagation of mankind and joint happiness of the couple intermarrying, taken together, or the latter by itself.427 The difference of the sexes, with the strong inclination they have each to the enjoyment of the other,428 is plainly ordained by the Author of nature for the continuance of the species, which without that must be soon extinguished. And though people, when they marry, may have many times not so much the increase of their family in their design or wishes, as the gratification of an importunate appetite; yet since nature excites the appetite, and that tends to this end, nature (or rather its great Author) may be said to make this an end of the marriage, though the bridegroom and bride themselves do not.