Failing marriage, Franklin then gives his friend why carrying on affairs with older women is a good alternative. For starters, older women are better conversationalists, “Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations.” Furthermore, as women lose their looks with age, Franklin writes that they tend to become more agreeable.

Franklin also notes that women of a certain age can no longer conceive, a good thing because children “irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.” The future Ambassador to France knew what he was talking about: his illegitimate son William Franklin would become the last Colonial Governor of New Jersey and a steadfast British loyalist.