THE Petition of the LADIES of LONDON and WESTMINSTER to the Honourable House of HUSBANDS  
WE know you are harrassed with Petitions from all Quarters of the Nation; for to whom should the miserable Subject apply himself for the Redress of his just Grieances, but to this awful Assembly? At present you have no less th●n the Safety of all Europe, and that of England in particular, depending upon your Supplies and Assistance; yet you sometimes condescend to entertain yourselves with Things of far less Importance, Give us leave therefore to lay our lamentable Condition before you, and to expect a relief from your generous appearing in our behalf. We demand nothing but what is highly reasonable and advantageous to the State, nothing but what the Laws of God, Nature, and the end of our Creation plead for, & next to that immediately employs your Councils at this juncture, we offer a matter of the highest Consequence that ever came within your Walls.  
You need not be reminded with what Scorn and contempt the Holy State of Matrimony has of late years been treated: Every nasty Scribbler of the Town has pelted it in his wretched Lampoons; it has been persecuted in Sonnet, reddiculed at Court, exposed on the Theatre, and that so often, that the Subject is now exhausted and barren; so that if no new Effors have been lately made against our Sex's Grand Charter, we are not to ascribe it either to the good Nature or Conversion of the Men, but only to the want of fresh Matter and Argument. What afflicts us most, is to find Persons of good sense and gravity, considerable for their Estates and Fortunes, so shamefully led aside from their Duty by the feeble Sophistry of these little unthinking Rhyming Creatures; and to see that a scurilous Song to the Tune of a Dog with a Bo●tle, shall make a greater Impression upon them than all the wholesome Precepts of the Apostles put together.  
One, forsooth, is mortally afraid lest his head should ache within a Fortnight or so after Marriage, and yet makes no Conscience of filling his Carcase every Night with filthy stummed Wine, which in all probability will sooner give him a Fever, than a Wife confer a pair of Horns upon him. A second professes he has an unvincible Aversion to the squaling of Children, and rooking of Cradles, though the Sot can fit a whole day at Wills, amidst the eternal Quarrels of the No wits, and the endless Disputes of No-Politicians: A third is apprehensive of the thing called Curtain-Lectures, as the nauseous Fellows love to talk; and yet suffer themselves to be tamely rid by common, ungrateful Hackney prostituts. A Fourth has a great respect to his own dear person and thinks a Wife will drain him to mere Skin and Bones, who for all that so manages himself, as to have occasion to visit Dr. W●●●●wice a Quarter. Lastly, The graver sort exclaim at the Caudles, the Pins, & Midwives, the Nurses, and other Concominats of Wedlock; they pretend the Taxes run high, and that a Spouse is an expensive Animal, little considering that they throw away more upon their dearly beloved vanities, than would maintain a Wife, and half a dozen Children.  
These are the common Topics against Matrimony; and yet, to behold the Vanity of these pretences, they immediately disappear and vanish, as soon as a good Fortune comes in their way. Show the Sparks but a rich Heiress, or an old griping Alderman's Daughter, and they soon forget Curtain lectures and Cuckoldom Consumptions and Skelton's, pins and caudles, Impertinance and Confinement, with the rest of their terrible objections. Then you hear not a Syllable of Liberty; but oh! what a blessed, what a comforeable thing is a Wife! Nay, a Widow, though past Fifty, and as ugly as one of the Witches in Macbeth, if she has but store of Money, shall go down as gliblie with them, as the New Oaths of Preferment at Court; without the least wry Face or remorse of consciene●; And the vain Coxcombs think themselves as happy, as if they had got both the Indies in their possession.  
But though the Laity, not to mince Matters, have almost universalie degenerated in this wicked Age; Yet we bless Heaven that our Sex has still found the Benefit of the Clergy, & that the Church men have been our surest & best Friends all along. Had not these pious Gentlemen taken pity of our condition, how many superannuated Chambermaid's had lain neglected, how many languishing Farmer's Daughter's gone the way of all Flesh, without propagating their kind? Whatever Prevarications they have made in other parts of the Bible; we have to our unspeakable comfort found that they have kept constant to the Text, Increase and multiply; and indeed it was but reasonable that these People who are every Momont trumping their Jure Divino upon the World, should by their own Example support and countenance that sort of Life, which is as much Jure Divino as the Priesthood.  
We never questioned, notwithstanding the unwearied Attempts of our adversaries to render Marriage contemptible both in their Writings and Conversation, but that Nature, mere Nature without any Endeavours of our own, would have reduced the Men long since to a true sense of their Duty, had it not been for the two following Impediments: The first is Wine, which we that are Maids have as much reason to complain of, as those that are married. 'Tis a burning shame, and it highly concerns the wisdom of the nation to prevent it, that the young fellows of the Town should scandalously abandon themselves to the Bottle. They ply their Glasses too warmlie to think of any thing else; and if the liquor happens to inspire them with any kind Inclinations, the next Street furnishes them with store of conveniences to relieve their Appetite. And this leads us to the second Block in our way, which is the intolerable multitude of Mistresses, who to the great prejudice of the public, divert the course of those streams, which would otherwise run in the regular Channel of matrimony, As long as these contraband Commodities are encouraged or connived at, it cannot be expected that virtuous Women should bear a good market price, or that Marriage should flourish.  
It would look like Affectation or Vanity in those of our Sex, whom the malicious World supposes to be conversant in nothing else but Books of Receipts and Romances, to acquaint so experienced and learned a Body as yours is, how highly Marriage was reverenced, and how industriously cultivated by the wisest Governments in the World. The Examples of Athens and Sparta are too notorious to be long insisted upon. Those were glorious places for us, poor Women, to live in; a Man there could neither be Church Warden or Constable, nay, nor be concerned in the meanest, most scoundrel Parish Offices, unless he was married. An old musty Bachelor was pointed at like a Monster, they looked upon such a one to be disaffected to the State, and therefore as constantly indicted him every Quarter Sessions, for letting his Talon lie unemployed, as now we do Jacobites, and false Retailers of News. The same Policy was observed at Rome, where the Jus trium liberorum, the privilege of those that had got three Children, was one of the greatest Favours the Emperor could bestow upon a Subject, and was courted with as vigorous an Application as a Knighthood is now adays. By this means that victorious City arrived to the Empire of the World; And we, if we would beat the French into better manners, we must follow the same Conduct: But it grieves our hearts to consider that in a Christian, and much more in a Protestant Country, we are forced to stir up the Charity of well disposed persons by citing Pagan Examples.  
We therefore humbly Petition you, that for the increase of Their Majesty's Liege people, in whom the power and strength of a Nation consists, and for the utter discouragement of Celibacy and all its wicked works, you would be pleased to enact,  
First, That all men of what Quality and Degree soever, should be obliged to marry as soon as they are One and Twenty; and that those persons who decline so doing, shall for their Liberty, as they are pleased to miscallit, pay yearly to the State, which we leave to your discretion to make as great or as little as you think fit, on Moiety whereof shall go to the King towards the payment to his Army in Flanders, and the rest to be distributed amongst poor House keepers, that have not sufficient to maintain their Wives and respective Families by such married Officers as you shall nominate and appoint.  
secondly, That no Excuse shall be admitted, but only that of natural friglditie or impotence; which that it may not be pretended when there is no just occasion for it, and likewise that impotent persons may not, to the disapoointment of their Spouses, enter into the holy State of Matrimony, there shall be erected in every County in England a Court of Judioature, composed of half a score experienced Matrons or Midwives, who by a wri● de martiali supellectile inspiciendâ, may summon or cause to be summoned, all such people as pretend the abovementioned Excuse, or are justly suspected thereof.  
thirdly, Since it is found by experience that the generality of Youngmen, are such Idolaters of the Bottle, and that Wine is the most powerful Rival which the Ladies have reason to be jealous of, that no person whatsoever shall be privileged to enter a Tavern who is not married, under pain of having his Wig and gilt Snuff-box confisented Toties Quocies  
fourthly, That every Poet, or pretender to be a Poet, or any one that has hired a Poeto writ any Play, satire, Song or Lampoon, to the derogation of the Matrimonial State," W" be obliged to marry before Lady Day next ensuing, and to make a solemn Recantation of all, and every wicked thing by him utteredd in any Play, satire, Song or Lampoon to the derogation of the Matrimonial State; that all such disaffected Papers shall be called in, and publicly burnt by the hands of twelve City Clergy Men's Wives, on next St. Valentine's Day.  
Lastlie, That to prevent the grievous Multitudes of, and frequents resorts to Misses and Harlots, every Person of Quality pretending to keep a Miss, after the commencing of this Act, shall be enjoined in order to his farther Punishment, to keep a Regiment of Foot for his Majesty's Service upon the Rhine; or in case he chooses to disband her, to dispose of her in Marriage to his Footman and Groom, and allow them therewith to set up a Coffe-house. And as for the Inferior Harlots, all Justices of Peaec and Constables shall execute the Laws against them.  
Having thus, most noble Patriots, laid open our Grivances bsfore you, we doubt not but you will take effectual care to redress them, could you condescend so low as to debate about the making Rivers Wye and Lugier navigable, and will you not endeavour as much as in thou lies to untie the Male-streams with the Female? Could you think it worth the while to take care of the propagation of Woods, the draining of the Fens, and the converting of Pastures in to Arable Land; and will you not much more encourage the propagation of Mankind, the draining of the superfluous Humours of the Bod●● Politiel, and provide that so many longing young Ladies shall not lie unploughed, unharrowed, and uncultivated? Besides there was never a sitter occasion for such a Bill, than what offers itself at present: The mighty numbers of Men that our Wars carry off in Flanders, with the little or no Increase at home to balance the loss; and what ought to be no small Argument with you, the few unmarried Sparks that tarry behind, are of late grown so imperious and proud in their demands, that nothing will go down with them now but an Heiress. Here are an infinite number of Advocats to incline you to be kind to our cause, Wit and Youth, Beauty and good Nature, besides the public Advantage, and the Protestant Religion plead for us; but what cannot fail to move even hearts of Marble, This very Petition is subscrived be Ten Thousand Green sickness Maidens.  
That single Consideration, we know, will prevail with you to espouse our Quarrel, to restore Matrimony to its Primitive Splendour; and lastlie to destroy celibacy, as effectually as you have done Popery. Which will oblige your Petitioners.  
As in duty bound ever to pray. etc.  
This Pettition is Subscrived by Threescore Thousand Hands, and never a cracked Maidenhead; or Widow amongst them all.   

LONDON, Printed for Mary Want man, the Fore maid of the Petitioners, ●nd sold by A. R. in Fleet street, 1693.