some of the sex, who are
proficients in meretricious arts: but in keeping a mistress, which is a
more ordinate and safer fornication, he can learn and see the above
distinctions. VI. By keeping a mistress, also no entrance is afforded to
the four kinds of lusts, which are in the highest degree destructive of
conjugial love,--the lust of defloration, the lust of varieties, the
lust of violation, and the lust of seducing innocences, which are
treated of in the following pages. These observations, however, are not
intended for those who can check the tide of lust; nor for those who can
enter into marriage during the season of youth, and offer and impart to
their wives the first fruits of their manliness.

460. XIV. KEEPING A MISTRESS IS PREFERABLE TO VAGUE AMOURS, PROVIDED
ONLY ONE IS KEPT AND SHE BE NEITHER A MAIDEN NOR A MARRIED WOMAN, AND
THE LOVE OF THE MISTRESS BE KEPT SEPARATE FROM CONJUGIAL LOVE. At what
time and with what persons keeping a mistress is preferable to vague
amours, has been pointed out just above. I. The reason why only one
mistress is to be kept, is, because if more than one be kept, a
polygamical principle gains influence, which induces in a man a merely
natural state, and thrusts him down into a sensual state, so much so
that he cannot be elevated into a spiritual state, in which conjugial
love must be; see n. 338, 339. II. The reason why this mistress must not
be a maiden, is because conjugial love with women acts in unity with
their virginity, and hence constitutes the chastity, purity, and
sanctity of that love; wherefore when a woman makes an engagement and
allotment of her virginity to any man, it is the same thing as giving
him a certificate that she will love him to eternity: on this account a
maiden cannot, from any rational consent, barter away her virginity,
unless when entering into the conjugial covenant: it is also the crown
of her honor: wherefore to seize it without a covenant of marriage, and
afterwards to discard her, is to make a courtezan of a maiden, who might
have been a bride or a chaste wife, or to defraud some man; and each of
these is hurtful. Therefore whoever takes a maiden and unites her to
himself as a mistress, may indeed dwell with her, and thereby initiate
her into the friendship of love, but still with a constant intention, if
he does not play the whoremaster, that she shall be or become his wife.
III. That the kept mistress must not be a married woman, because this