If any lady, desirous of exculpating herself from my censure, pleads that “she never admits a Man-midwife to familiarities but when in actual labour”—I answer, that, even in actual labour—a woman has many intervals of ease, for many minutes together quite free from pain—in those intervals, her mind cannot maintain its spotless whiteness—in those intervals she cannot but be conscious, that the doctor is infringing on the husband.
But I believe there are very few women who confine the Doctor’s familiarities to the times of real labour. Lady ⸺, Mrs. ⸺, acquiesce in whatever he thinks right during all the months of pregnancy—and must he not be more than man, or less than man, who, roving luxuriously through all the hidden charms of beauty, can help being inflamed by passion?—and, if inflamed by passion, he may proceed on certainties ... he has an unerring tell-tale under his inspection, which gives him an infallible cue, when he may safely throw aside the mask, fearless of any repulse.
Shew some sense of modesty, ye Duchesses, Countesses, &c. &c. and those inferior women, whom ye have debauched by your bad examples, will again imitate ye, in forsaking these Scandalous practices. Blush, ye women of fashion, to own that any man, besides your husbands, is admitted to liberties with your persons. No longer talk of “dear Doctor Hunter,” “angelic Doctor—” “enchanting Doctor—.” ... For my own part, if I was a married man, I declare it would be a matter of the utmost indifference to me, whether my wife had spent the night in a bagnio—or an hour of the forenoon locked up with a man-midwife in her dressing room.—Let this shameless custom be abolished, and then virtue will fly back again to our metropolis, with all her train of genuine self-approving pleasures—and England be once more as much famed for the chastity, as for the beauty of its women.
Adieu, Mr. Printer—you have received this letter from a sincere admirer of female modesty: Without it “beauty ceases being lovely, or wit being engaging.” Whoever possesses it cannot be enough esteemed and regarded—whoever is deficient in it cannot be sufficiently despised and slighted. Ye English fair, it ought to be your characteristic! but while your fathers, husbands, and brothers are unprincipled, corrupted senators—you think you have a right to deviate from your point of honour, since they shew you the example in their’s.
To conclude—true modesty is incompatible with the idea of employing
A MAN MIDWIFE[2].
[2] Except when those very rare instances occur, which do not happen once in two thousand labours.