Lady Town. O my Lord! my Lord! they are quite different creatures! Wives have infinite liberties in life, that would be terrible in an unmarried woman to take.
Lord Town. Name one.
Lady Town. Fifty, if you please!—--to begin then, in the morning——A married woman may have men at her toilet, invite them to dinner, appoint them a party, in a stage box at the play; ingross the conversation there, call 'em by their christian names; talk louder than the players;——From thence jaunt into the city——take a frolicksome supper at an India house——perhaps in her gaieté de cœur toast a pretty fellow—Then clatter again to this end of the town, break with the morning, into an assembly, croud to the hazard-table, throw a familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry——you'll owe it him to vex him! ha! ha!
Lord Town. Prodigious!
[Aside.
Lady Town. These now, my Lord, are some few of the many modish amusements, that distinguish the privilege of a wife, from that of a single woman.
Lord Town. Death! Madam, what law has made these liberties less scandalous in a wife, than in an unmarried woman?
Lady Town. Why, the strongest law in the world, custom——custom time out of mind, my Lord.
Lord Town. Custom, Madam, is the law of fools: but it shall never govern me.
Lady Town. Nay, then, my Lord, 'tis time for me to observe the laws of prudence.