rried. To shun those that are evil natured._

Under a thousand Pleasures that we find in the estate of marriage, it
is none of the least, to see the Woman put the breeches on, seeming
that she will act the part of a Jack-pudding. But melancoly men
oftentimes cannot bear with such sort of jesting, and presently bawl
and rail at such a Woman, calling her a Monster, or some other ill
name. Although they know very well that such sort of Monsters are now
a daies so common, that if they were all to be shewn in Booths for
farthings a peece, there would be less spectators, then there was to
see the Sheep with five legs, or the great Crocodile.

Verily, such men are unhappy, and they do not a little also neglect
these Pleasures; when they, forsooth, think that by the putting on of
the breeches, must be understood that they are over Lorded, and that
the Hen crows louder then the Cock. O miserable man, if your head be
possest with this kind of frenzy, and can't be removed! Verily, if you
had but seen the Plate of the Women fighting for the Breeches, you
would be of another judgement. For in those daies the man was glad to
be rid of them, if he could but get the lining untorn or indamaged;
for he saw perfectly that the World was at that time so full of those
pretty Beldams, that there was begun a most bloody War between the
better sort of Gentlewomen, and the meaner degree of Women, for the
gaining of the Breeches, wherein Ketels and Pans, Tongs and
Fireshovels, Spinning-wheels, Brooms and Maps were all beaten out of
fashion. And it may very well be thought, that if the Woman had put
them on at first, and so have helpt him to have kept them, this
wonderfull and destructive War would never have risen to that fury.
Therefore it is no small prudence of the Women in these daies, who are
descended from that family, to take care, at the very first, for the
good of their husbands, that the Breeches may be well preserved.

But let's be serious, and pass by all these kind of waggeries; if we
consider the husband as Captain, and the Wife as Lieutenant, is it not
in the highest degree necessary, that she should have also a part of
the masculine knowledge and authority? Besides, women must be silent
in Politick and Church-government, why should not they have somthing
to say in those places where they are houswives? We see certainly,
that the men, for the most part, cannot tarry at home, and will be
going hither or thither to take the air,