SECT. VIII.
CHAP. I.
Of the Symptoms incident to the State of WIDOW-HOOD.
AS the Widow has in her former Days, tasted both of the Sweets and the Sours of the Maiden, as well as of the marry’d State; so she is now also subject to all the Affections of the One, as well as to some of the Other. Whatever she may judge of her self, and however she may, in some measure, be liberated from the Solicitudes of the First, and freed from the Anxieties of the other; yet she is still so far from being exempted from the Morbifick Consequences of the Natural Imbecillity of her tender Sex; that she now, tho’ in different Respects and various Cases, participates of the Indispositions of Both.
HOWEVER yet, notwithstanding this Variety of Afflictions, to which the Widow is actually expos’d; I confess, that, I know not so much as one Disease or Symptom, which is singularly peculiar to Her self, that is, but what either the Maiden or the Wife may be lyable to, as well as the Widow: Tho’, in the mean time, I must also acknowledge, that, Those which I am now about to touch upon, may however, be justly esteem’d to be more familiar to Her, than to either of These, as will by and by more evidently appear.
UPON which Consideration, I hope the following Heads may here pertinently take place; not but that the others, I mean the Maid and the Wife, may also sometimes, and perhaps frequently too, find their Case included in the Theme of this Section, as well as the Widow Her self, according to the Diversity of their Circumstances.
FOR these Reasons, I shall begin with That, from which none of the Three, that is, neither the Maid, nor the Wife, nor the Widow, can altogether plead Exemption, which notwithstanding, according to my best Judgment, is more immediately the particular Root and Source of the most, if not of all, the Widow’s Distempers, which however, that I may not too much over-run my Design of Brevity, I shall briefly comprehend under One or Two Heads, viz.——