Eu. But in the mean Time there are perpetual Wars between you.

Xa. What then would you have me to do?

Eu. If your Husband offers you any Affront, you must take no Notice of it, but endeavour to gain his good Will by all good Offices, courteous Carriage, and Meekness of Spirit, and by these Methods, you will in Time, either wholly reclaim him, or at least you will live with him much more easy than now you do.

Xa. Ay, but he’s too ill-natur’d to be wrought upon by all the kind Offices in the World.

Eu. Hold, don’t say so, there is no Beast that is so savage but he may be tam’d by good Management; therefore don’t despair of it as to a Man.  Do but make the Experiment for a few Months, and if you do not find that this Advice has been of Benefit to you, blame me.  And there are also some Faults that you must wink at; but above all Things, it is my Opinion, you ought to avoid ever to begin any Quarrel either in the Bed-Chamber, or in Bed, and to take a special Care that every Thing there be chearful and pleasant.  For if that Place which is consecrated for the wiping out old Miscarriages and the cementing of Love, comes to be unhallowed by Contention and Sourness of Temper, all Remedy for the Reconcilement is taken away.  For there are some Women of so morose Tempers that they will be querulous, and scold even while the Rites of Love are performing, and will by the Uneasiness of their Tempers render that Fruition itself disagreeable which is wont to discharge the Minds of Men from any Heart-burning, that they may have had; and by this Means they spoil that Cordial, by which Misunderstandings in Matrimony might be cured.

Xa. That has been often my Case.

Eu. And tho’ it ought always to be the Care of a Wife, not to make her Husband uneasy in any Thing; yet that ought to be especially her Care to study, in conjugal Embraces to render herself by all ways possible, agreeable and delightful to her Husband.

Xa. To a Man, indeed!  But I have to do with an untractable Beast.

Eu. Come, come, leave off Railing.  For the most part Husbands are made bad, by our bad Conduct.  But to return to our Argument, those that are conversant in the antient Fables of the Poets, tell you that Venus, (whom they make a Goddess, that presides over Matrimony) had a Girdle or Cestus which was made for her by Vulcan’s Art, in which were interwoven all bewitching Ingredients of an amorous Medicament, and that she put this on whenever she went to bed to her Husband.

Xa. I hear a Fable.

Eu. It is true:  But hear the Moral of it.

Xa. Tell it me.

Eu. That teaches that a Wife ought to use all the Care imaginable to be so engaging to her Husband in conjugal Embraces, that matrimonial Affection may be retain’d and renew’d, and if there has been any Distaste or Aversion, it may be expell’d the Mind.