"As unto the bow the cord is,So unto the man is woman.Though she bends him, she obeys him;Though she draws him, yet she follows:Useless each without the other."
"As unto the bow the cord is,So unto the man is woman.Though she bends him, she obeys him;Though she draws him, yet she follows:Useless each without the other."
Woman might be said to be, both in the family and in society, the centripetal force, insuring permanency, attracting and drawing to herself and within herself, thus preventing, in the family and in society, the tendency to fly from the centre and to produce chaos. Man is life's centrifugal force. The impetuosity and velocity of his nature tend to throw everything from the centre. His influence is to prevent gravitation from drawing everything to a given point, where all would become a state of rest. While woman keeps life stable, man keeps it from stagnation; but it requires the reciprocal influence of each to secure that harmony which God intended. Woman's stability unmodified byman's influence would tend to result in complete rest, which would mean stagnation and death. Man's greater impetuosity would lead to instability, unrest, and possible chaos. As, in nature, the centrifugal and centripetal forces equalize and balance themselves, swaying the spheres in fixed orbits, so the influences of men and women upon each other, both in the family and in society, help to secure and maintain an even balance. While opposite in tendency, they are yet of equal necessity and of equal value. Each is essential to the perfection and completeness of the other, and perfect unity is only secured by the union of the two.
The reciprocal influences of men and women are oftentimes noticed in old couples who have passed thirty or forty years together in peace and harmony, each living year after year under the moulding power of the other, and each being moulded by the surroundings and influences which have wrought upon the other. Year after year they become more alike in form, feature and expression. Their views and opinions become increasingly harmonized, until there comes also to be a mental resemblance. That they have lived in the midst of the same surroundings and breathed the same air, have eaten the same kind of food, have shared each other's joys and pleasures, have laughed and wept together, have been under the formative influences of the same conditions, tend in a measure to this increasing likeness; but under the reciprocal influences each has lost a portion of this more pronounced personality and taken upon himself or herself the physical, intellectual and moral features of the other. Their union has constantly tended to unity.
In religious matters there is also a noticeable difference between men and women. Generally, woman responds more readily to religious teachings and influences, and by nature she manifestly follows the Master's leadings more closely than her male companion; and there are good reasons evident why this should be so. With the uninterrupted duties of the household, which are oftentimes even multiplied on Sundays, it is necessary that a moral sense correspondingly more acute should prompt her to overcome the difficulties which beset her in her approach to the sanctuary, and God has given her that added moral force which is designed to enable her to overcome the increased resistance which she meets in the performance of her religious duties. There are times also when, in the discharge of her special duties as wife and mother, for weeks, and even for months, she is called upon to minister to others in sickness, or give herself to the care of infant children; and were it not for the larger endowment of her devotional nature, these repeated and prolonged but enforced absences from God's house would result in the formation of a fixed habit which would eventually wholly keep the majority of women from attendance upon all religious assemblies.
But in view of the important fact that Godhas more largely entrusted the moral and religious training of the children to the mother, we need to think but for a moment to understand what would be the result if her own nature was not endowed with sufficient strength to enable her to overcome every barrier, and to rise to the higher plane of duty and responsibility in this matter. The exceptional instances of mothers who are themselves deficient in their moral nature and neglectful of religious duties, and who, on that account, fail utterly in the moral and religious training of their children, are quite sufficient to illustrate what would be the condition in the home, in the Church, the community, and the State, if God had not endowed woman with a stronger moral nature and a keener sense of religious obligation than is found in man. It is by this more active moral sense in woman that the religious poise and balance of the family is maintained; and its benign results are often seen, not only in the children, but in the husband as well.
The complemental differences in the intellectual and moral natures of men and women are as essential to the highest and best development of the entire nature of each as the complemental physical and sexual differences of each are indispensable to that union in which the two are made one in the child which is begotten of the father and born of the mother.
This reflexive and reciprocal influence of each sex upon the other to the mutual modification and advantage of both is clearly seen in the nation, as well as in the life of the family. This thought is beautifully presented by Margaret Warner Morley in her book entitled "Life and Love": "In the lower life, and in savages, the community in its characteristics approaches the masculine type; it is selfish, egoistic, unstable, variable. The herd of buffalo, for illustration, roams about in search of food and water, charging relentlessly and destroying whatever enemy comes in its way. The savage tribe often has no fixed abode, but roams about from place to place; where it has a home it is, as a rule, given to frequent war with its neighbors, and is liable to be uprooted by a stronger foe and absorbed, and thus lost, or it may be destroyed or compelled to move on. While this is true in the savage communityas a whole, that is, considered as a nation, a unit; in its internal organization, on the other hand, it is essentiallyfemininein its characteristics; its habits are simple, stable, not liable to change. It makes no inventions, elaborates no complex machinery."
In civilized life, the opposite characteristics predominate. The community as a whole constantly takes upon itself the best characteristics of the feminine type. It becomes stable, less given to change. It does not seek war, but prefers peace, becomes more and more quiescent and altruistic.
While these external changes are discernible, corresponding changes take place in theinternalnational life. The civilized nation tends to move away from the feminine toward themasculine type. Inventions and innovations constantly change the order of things. National existence is established, but the existence of the individual calls for a more vigorous struggle. Competitions become fierce, and the struggle between labor and capital becomes more intense, and the exertion of personal energy merges into an effort to secure prestige and place, wealth and power; consequently the higher faculties generally obtain their larger development.
In this approach toward the feminine type the community as a whole parts with some of its less desirable masculine expressions; it becomes modified, less angular. The desire for war departs, courage remains, and energy finds expression in new and nobler directions. But while these changes are taking place, the community does not discard all its masculine characteristics. It simply parts with the lower or least desirable of each, while the best elements of both are united in the new manifestation.
To quote further from Miss Morley's interesting paragraphs: "Certain changes which mark the advanced community as a whole, necessarily, and in no less degree, mark the individuals composing it. The sexes are not sharply distinguished from each other in the intellectual and emotional realms. On the whole, men as a class probably show a preponderance of what may be termed masculine characteristics, as greater egoism, variability, activity; but these masculine characteristics have been modified, lessened,effeminized, so to speak. In the highertype of man the best and highest feminine characteristics have been fused with the best and highest masculine characteristics. The fighting instinct, for instance, has become moral courage; the tendency to vary expresses itself in great intellectual development; instability and restlessness have become intellectual rather than physical qualities, leading to notable inventions and discoveries.
"Brave and gentle, strong and tender, inventive and patient, the finest type of man owes his superiority to the transforming and illuminating power of his inheritance of womanly qualities.
"In the higher type of woman the best and highest masculine characteristics have been fused with the best and highest development of the feminine characteristics. Altruism, for instance, has been rationalized and guarded by the exercise of greater reasoning power; stability, or inertia, has been lessened and prevented from forming an insurmountable barrier to progress. The tendency to vary has been strengthened; the more negative nature has progressed to a more positive condition. Courage, inventiveness and greater strength of intellectual perception have been fostered in civilized woman. Her submission to man gradually lessens before the upward progress of her mind. She places herself as his equal—as the other half, without which his half-life cannot be complete.
"Nor does this borrowing of the characteristics of each by the other mean the merging of the two sexes into one,—the obliteration of sexdifference, and hence of sex attraction. It means the elevation of man by developing his masculine qualities in the direction of their highest possibilities, and by adding to manhood a new charm, a subtle grace, an irresistible beauty. It means the elevation of woman by the development of her womanly qualities in the direction of their highest possibilities, and by adding to womanhood a new power, a deeper, more far-reaching sympathy, an ineffable glow and a nobler beauty.
"The mind is a mighty solvent; through it the two sexes have been united in an intellectual union, from which has been born a new man with the dominant masculine characteristics developed in the noblest direction, and enriched by union with feminine characteristics, and a new woman with the feminine characteristics grandly developed and enhanced by what was once in the province of masculine knowledge and activity."
In harmony with what we have been considering in this chapter, it is eminently proper to discuss briefly the reciprocal sexual tempers and tendencies of married men and women. While the discussion of the various modifications of these differences does not belong to this chapter, yet the recognition of the fact itself and a noting of the beneficial, reactionary and reciprocal effects are pre-eminently in place just at this point.
The active nature of the sperm of the male and the passivity which distinguishes the ovumof the female characterize the two sexes from the beginning to the end of their existence. The greater activity of the sperm, the quickened pulse of the male child at birth, the more restless nature of the boy-baby, his running, climbing, active life throughout childhood and adolescence—these traits characterize not only his boyhood, his days of developing manhood, but his marital relations as well.
With rare exceptions, both of person and of instances, in married life all the sexual aggressiveness is with the male. Wives seldom seek the closer embraces of their husbands. They are generally indifferent; often absolutely averse. With the husband, while in perfect health, the conditions are quite the opposite; and the wisdom of the Creator is manifest in the fact that were the wife equally quickened by the same amative tendencies, the male nature would be called into such frequent and continuous exercise that the power of reproduction would be either totally destroyed or so impaired that the race would degenerate into moral, intellectual and physical pigmies. God has made the passivity of the wife the protection of her husband and a source of manifold blessing to their children.
Upon the other hand, her uninterrupted and entire neglect of the sexual relation is wisely overcome, to the advantage of the wife, by her husband's greater sexual activity, while at the same time her restraining passiveness is made his safeguard and security. Each brings intothe married relation inclinations and propensities which are to modify the other, to the mutual benefit of both.
If husbands and wives only knew and adequately realized these facts, and harmonized their thought and conduct toward each other accordingly, much of the discord, estrangement and consequent unhappiness in married life would be eliminated and disappear. When both alike recognize these differences and the Wisdom which has made them to differ, and when each is willing to accept the modifying influence of the other in the manner in which God has intended, the discord and misery which blight thousands of lives and destroy such multitudes of homes will give place to a benediction and blessing which will restore to earth a larger measure of the happiness of Eden.
But before closing this chapter upon the complemental differences between the two sexes, it will be interesting to observe some remarkable similarities in the reproductive organs themselves, and to note how, in that infinite wisdom which is marvelous in our eyes, God has so modified their form and office that the external organs of reproduction in man become the internal and seemingly different organs of reproduction in woman.
To understand the full significance of what we have briefly to say upon this subject it will be well to recall the fact that in man and animals even those physical characteristics which may be regarded as strictly feminine are presentin a rudimentary form in the male, andvice versa. Let a single instance suffice. The paps and breasts of the male are but the diminutive and dormant breasts and nipples of the female; and this is true not only with man, but with the lower animals.
The male not only simulates but really possesses in rudimentary form all the parts and powers which characterize the fuller development in the opposite sex.
That this is true is demonstrated by the cases of abnormal sexual development which at long intervals are born in different lands, and by the occasional instances in heathen countries where old men, after prolonged stimulation of the breasts, are made effectively to serve as nurses for infants.
As the pelvic bone in man and woman is modified by the various changes of form which adapt it to the different necessities of each sex, so in a large measure are the reproductive organs, primarily, the same in men and women.
If you enlarge the curve of the pelvic frontal, then press the scrotum or sack of the male upward into the body, it will correspond to the vagina and the womb of the female. Move the testicles to the right and the left and you have their counterparts, the ovaries, while the spermatic cords form the Fallopian tubes for the passage of the completely formed ovum from the ovaries to the womb. Without materially disturbing its position, diminish the sexualmember of the male and you have the clitoris of the female.
It is readily seen that with these changes of position, together with slight modifications of form and function, those parts which to the unobservant and the unthoughtful seem wholly different in the two sexes are, after all, discovered to be only diversified forms of the same thing.
But this very fact, however, invests the study of this subject with increased interest, and displays in an unexpected manner the wonderful wisdom which characterizes everything that God has created; for as these organs take upon themselves the modifications of either sex, every other organ and faculty that together constitute the individual must be so modified as to adjust the physical, intellectual, social and moral natures into harmonious unity of personality.
Beforewriting of what a young husband ought to know with regard to his wife and his children, subjects which are to engage our thought in Part Second and Part Third, it is important that we should carefully consider some matters which he ought to know concerning himself; for his future happiness, and usefulness as well, will be quite as much dependent upon the mental, physical and moral equipment which he personally brings to the union as the endowments and qualifications which are possessed by his partner and companion.
If your wife is to have a fair chance for a pleasant home and a happy and useful life, she will need a husband who can sacrifice his personal luxuries and self-indulgences in order that he may share with her and the family the comforts and blessings of their home—a man who will scorn the saloon, avoid the club, remain away from the lodge, give up his cigar, and spend his time and his money for the comfort and happiness of his family.
There are hundreds of homes which are rendered unhappy, and in many senses miserable, because of the neglect and want which are due wholly to the selfishness and lack of consideration upon the part of the husband. If youwish to preserve and perpetuate that which is noblest and best in your wife and your children, you can only do so by making your home the centre of your thought, and by making your loved ones the sharers of your purse and your pleasures. If you wish them to live for your comfort and happiness, they have an equal right to expect you to live and sacrifice for their comfort and happiness. Almost any promising bride may soon be made an ill-tempered wife, a discontented homekeeper and an indifferent mother by an improvident, extravagant, selfish and neglectful husband. In most instances, ruined homes come principally from drink, idleness, bad temper, shiftlessness and thriftless habits, brutal husbands, slatternly wives and Christless living. Do your duty faithfully to your wife and your children, and then, if home and happiness are wrecked, the responsibility will not rest upon you.
In woman, the love of home is usually more dominant than in man. By cultivating this in yourself you will produce a harmony of thought and purpose which will contribute greatly to the comfort and well-being of both. Adorn your home with your own hands. Beautify the lawn, the shrubbery, and all external surroundings. It matters not how great your wealth, or how small your purse, every consideration, effort and sacrifice you make in these directions will add to your own health and happiness and endear you to your wife. In the development of this common interest, you may secure in your own experience and the experience of your wife that happiness which is so manifest in springtime in the united industry of the two robins as they mold and fashion the nest together, moved by a common impulse and the premonition of the birdlings that are soon to be.
Be devoted. Keep up your courtship. Remember and repeat the little attentions which gave you pleasure months and years ago simply because you knew that they were a source of pleasure to the one whom you coveted as your bride and companion for life. How can your wife love and respect you if you neglect and forsake her? During your courtship, the club, the lodge and the society of others had to accept second place. You preferred her company to that of all others. If you are to her and she to you what each should be, this preference of the one for the society and companionship of the other will continue throughout life. Your home will be your clubhouse, and no society, or gilded hall, or corner grocery with its lounging company, will be able to attract you from her and from your home.
Most men who frequent these places are attracted there; but some go there because repelled from their homes. There are women whose inconsiderate treatment of their husbands repels them from their families and their homes, and the husbands simply resort to the club or other place of assemblage in their natural search for a place of refuge and fellowship. But such instances are the exception. In the majority ofcases the fault is largely, if not wholly, with the husband. Oftentimes his conduct is due to his thoughtlessness, but more frequently to pure selfishness.
Recently the writer called at the home of a mechanic to secure his services in a job of work. It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, and quite dark. For some time no one answered our knock. Finally a young wife, looking pale, weary and lonely, bearing a large lamp in one hand and a small child on the other arm, opened the door of the desolate home. We had a right to expect to find the husband and father at home, but no; to our inquiry we were told that we would likely find him at the toll-gate, the harness-maker's, or the grocery. Unless indications were deceptive, here was a case of cold indifference and selfish neglect. Would that this were a rare instance; but there are thousands of such in all circles of society in our cities and towns, and in the country as well.
We clip the following suggestive incident, and submit it as pertinent at this place:
"'My home shall be my clubhouse' said a young, unmarried, traveling-man, when returning from a visit to a former friend who had married and lived in a pleasant home. Almost the first words the latter spoke, as his visitor seated himself in the parlor, was: 'I want you to go over with me and see our nice, new clubrooms.'"
"But I did not come to see them," was the reply; "I came to see you and your family."
"That you can do anyhow," was the response, "so please get ready and we will go over and spend the evening there with a nice lot of friends."
"Further protest seemed ungracious, so the visitor yielded. Hour after hour passed by, and it was midnight before the visitor could induce his host, who was beginning to feel the effects of a night's drinking and revelry, to accompany him to his home.
"In the morning the host, who evidently felt that nothing had transpired at the clubrooms that could be objected to, asked his friend, 'Well, what is your opinion of our clubroom accommodations?'"
"The rooms are very nicely furnished," was the rather evasive reply.
"But what I want to know is, how did you enjoy yourself in them?"
"As further evasion was useless, the guest said: 'You are asking me a plain question, and I will answer it frankly. I am a single man, and expect soon to get married. If I continue to prosper, I intend to settle down in a comfortable home, and spend my evenings with my wife and my children. As for your clubrooms, if I wanted to neglect my family and my business, and perhaps go to ruin, I think I could soon bring about that result by spending my evenings in your clubrooms; and I am more resolved than ever that when I am once married my home shall be my clubhouse.'"
Now, we would not seem to indicate that theonly proper place for the husband is in the house—that he should not go out in the evening for diversion, social fellowship, or recreation. Not at all. These things are often necessary for his health, his happiness and his well-being. But are they not as essential to the health, the happiness and well-being of the wife as of the husband? If he seeks diversion in the evenings, let it be where his wife may accompany him, and share whatever benefits he enjoys. If family duties or the care of children render it impossible for both to leave home at the same time, then manifestly it is the duty of the husband to divide the advantages and disadvantages with the wife; and if the husband has the true father-spirit, the privilege of frequently remaining at home to spend the evening with his children will afford more pleasure and more profit than could be secured elsewhere.
The husband should plan and arrange to give his wife a proper amount of relaxation and diversion. The limitations of her restricted life make recreation and relaxation essential to the maintenance of good health and a cheerful disposition. But, in all your planning and arrangements, remember that relaxation and diversion may be secured within the home as well as without, and can be there enjoyed by the children also, and by others who may chance to share the home with you. If you and your wife have true father-love and mother-love, you will prefer home and the companionship of your children to any other place, and to thecompany of any other person or persons. Faithful husbands and wives and well-poised parents will need no specific directions in these matters. They will know how to care for their children, and at the same time not sacrifice health and cheeriness.
These are important subjects for the thoughtful consideration of young husbands, and older ones also; and while upon this matter, it may be well for those of us who are too apt to delegate to the wife the whole duty of making the home cheery and happy, to read and think upon the following from the pen of Dr. Isaac Farrar:
"How do you go home to your wife after business hours? Do you not frequently find a tired woman, who has been so hard at work all day with the care of three or four babies, and an incompetent hired girl, that she has found no time to make an afternoon toilet, to meet you as you would like to have her on your return? Try and be a sympathizing husband now; embrace your faithful wife and say to her: 'Never mind, my dear, I'm home early to-night. Come now, go and rest yourself, while I put little Clarence and Addie to bed, and if Frank comes in for his supper I will tell Bridget what to get for him.'
"Are you mindful of draughts and slamming doors while she takes her rest for an hour or so, and can you not induce her to take that rest every day? Remember her days are long, just as busy, and more full of petty cares than yours. A woman is required to be everything, from areception committee to receive calls in the parlor, to a nurse in the nursery and a chief executive in the kitchen; while a business man devotes himself to a single trade or profession.
"When you undertake to entertain your wife the evenings you are at home, do not have too much to say about the 'scarcity of money;' for perhaps, in her particular case, she knows as much about that as you do; and if the wood and coal bills are larger every year, remember that your family is larger as well; and do not tell her the general dislike you have for children unless they are angels, for they cannot quite be angels during their stay here on earth.
"When the children are in bed and the house quiet, do not seat yourself in the easy chair and read the newspaper to yourself, from editorials to market reports, as if it contained nothing that would interest an intelligent woman. Newspapers read in selfish solitude by thoughtless husbands have made the 'rift within the lute' in more than one happy home.
"How many anecdotes and stories do you tell your wife to provoke a smile or a laugh? How many roses or pinks do you pin on your coat, and how many do you bring home to her? Are you careful of your own appearance in the long evenings when there is no other woman but her to be captivated by your manly charms? I am inclined to believe there is more excuse for her, if her dress has not been changed, her hair made tidy, than there is for you, most noble husband! Perhaps you never gave it athought; but do not excuse your indifference and neglect of fond attentions, for they are just as dear to that careworn wife of yours at forty-five, or even fifty, years as at twenty-two, when you promised her that you would be true and faithful to her through life's journey. Have you honorably kept your word?
"Your answer may be: 'My wife knows I love her, and that's enough.' She may know it, but it is a pleasant thing to be assured of now and then, and if there were more everyday assurances there would be fewer careless, heart-starved wives."
It is the nature of all women to love to be wooed and won, and after marriage the same nature craves attention, tenderness, and the expression of appreciation, affection and love. No man, even if he were so sordid and selfish as to be moved by no less base or no more worthy motive than the satisfaction of his own sensual nature and consideration for his own personal comfort, could afford to withhold the expression of at least some measure of thoughtful consideration and attention. But any home in which such feelings have to be feigned, because they cannot truly be felt, is one in which commiseration and pity need to have a large place.
Should you ever note upon the part of your own wife the slightest manifestation of indifference and estrangement, put away from your lips, and even from your heart, all words of reproof and reproach, and try again the methodsthat enabled you to win the affections of your wife months and years ago. We grant you that there are some women who are regular Xantippes, whom no philosopher can manage, of whom we have given illustrious examples in the lives of some eminent men in the preceding volume, but let us hope that they are not numerous.
There are men, and not a few of them, we fear, who are doomed to disappointment in marriage. It does not take them long to discover the discrepancy between what they thought marriage to be and what it really is. They soon regard this union a mistake, and in a few years, and some even in a few months, denounce marriage as a failure. The truth is that the sole and only failure is found in the mistaken and unworthy views held, concerning marriage, by one or both parties to the contract. Marriage is no failure, but these men are themselves the failures. They belong to a class who hold most degraded views concerning woman and her relation to her husband in marriage. They regard woman as having been created solely to gratify the unbridled lust of man. They married with the idea that in such a union the grossest lust would have the sanction of law, and that in the marriage ceremony the wife relinquished all right to her own body, and for the satisfaction of wearing the white veil and carrying a bouquet of flowers consented to surrender to him not only her rights, but her sense of decency as well. These men who stare decency out of countenance upon the street, who lay traps forthe ruin of innocent and unsuspecting girls, who invade the sanctity of home, and whose course through life is like the slimy trail of a venomous serpent, are unfit for marriage—they are unfit to be regarded even as men. No man, it matters not how full his bank account or how fine his clothes, if he holds these low views of woman and of the wife's place in the marriage relation, is worthy of a wife, for he dishonors his own mother and sisters, dishonors every right-thinking man, and his Maker as well. Any man who has in him the seeds of such unworthy sentiments may be sure that even though they may be hidden during the earlier years, they will soon grow, and hasten to a harvest of terrible fruitage.
The happiness of many homes is wrecked in the early struggle to determine whether the will of the wife or the will of the husband shall have pre-eminence. We have even heard brides boasting that in trivial matters they contended with their husbands in order to teach them from the very beginning that they did not propose to recognize any superior right in the husband to direct, or, as they said, "to boss it over them." Brides often object to the word "obey" in the marriage service, and instead of using the words "Love, honor and obey," the substitution is often made of "Love, honor and cherish," or "reverence." If the word "obey" is understood by the husband to mean imperious domination, then it had better be universally expunged. Yet, nevertheless, there is a great deal of truthin the declaration of Napoleon that he would rather have his army in command of one poor general than of two good ones. The careful execution of an ordinary plan is much better than that which comes as the result of divergent views and conflicting opinions.
In an address delivered before the First National Congress of Mothers held in Washington, Hamilton Cushing, the chief of the Ethnological Department of the Government, gave a very interesting account of the custom among the Zuni Indians, who recognize the pre-eminence of the female in everything. The men are not even allowed to hold or to have any right in property, other than through their wives, mothers or sisters. In many marriage unions the wife is easily the intellectual superior of her husband, but the universal custom among civilized nations is to recognize the husband as the head of the house. This is the Christian idea, and the plain teaching of Scripture; not, however, in that mistaken sense which is so often intended when the words are quoted: "The husband is the head of the wife." The Scriptures nowhere justify a husband in assuming imperious domination over his wife. He is "the head of the wife," but in that loving, considerate sense "even as Christ is the head of the Church." The Scriptural teaching is so important and so beautiful that we insert here, in their entirety, two of the principal selections upon this subject. That which relates to the wife we have printed in italics, and that which relates to the husband we haveprinted in small capitals. But to understand the relation of these two co-ordinate truths, it is necessary that the reader should note carefully the entire context. Paul, in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, from the twenty-second to the thirty-third verse, writes as follows:
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.Husbands, Love Your Wives, Even as Christ also Loved the Church, and Gave Himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.So Ought Men to Love their Wives as their Own Bodies.He that loveth his own wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particularSo Love His Wife Even as Himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."
Here is clearly and beautifully set forth the correct relative pre-eminence in the home. It is the wife recognizing the headship of her husband, as the Church recognizes the headship, leadership and authority of Christ. Upon the part of the husband, his headship is to be exercised in the spirit of that abounding love which led the Son of God to the sacrifice of Himself, both during His life and in His atoning death, for the salvation and blessing of that body of believers who constitute the Christian Church.
The teachings of Peter in his first general letter, or epistle, in the third chapter, from the first to the seventh verse, is as follows:
"Likewise, yewives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
"Likewise, ye Husbands, Dwell withthem According to Knowledge, Giving Honor Unto the Wife, as unto the weaker vessel, andas Being Heirs Together of the Grace of Life; that your prayers be not hindered."
Here the teaching is also very beautiful and impressive. The wife is to be in subjection to a considerate and loving Christian husband because it is her privilege and honor; but even though her husband be no Christian, one who "obeys not the Word," still she is to recognize and conform to this teaching, to the end that by her consistent Christian deportment, and that adorning of "the hidden man of the heart" which is to be exhibited in "a meek and quiet spirit" she may win him to a life with Christ.
The husband is to dwell with his wife "according to knowledge," not in ignorance of the peculiar organs and functions of her reproductive nature; for Peter here manifestly refers specially to this, for with wonderful beauty he lifts the marital relation into a holy and sacred light by calling attention to the fact that the husband and the wife are "heirs together of the grace of life." In other words, God has taken his power as the Creator of life—think of it! as Creator—and made the husband and the wife joint heirs together of this grace or gift of creative power, which power they call into exercise in the act of reproduction. Surely, intelligence and reverence are essential, both in the husband and in the wife, in order that they may dwell together "according to knowledge."
It would scarcely seem necessary to enjoin industry as an essential to happiness in married life; and yet the happiness of many homes is wrecked on the rocks of ease and idleness. An idle person is like the ship that simply floats upon the seas without a cargo, and without a destination. There are ten thousand directions to shipwreck, but only one course that will bring the mariner to any desired port in safety.
In making labor essential, God conferred a great blessing upon man. The idle man is an unhappy man, and the idle woman is an unhappy woman. Industry is essential to the maintenance of good health, to the proper poise and manly mastery of the sexual nature, to a contented mind, a cheerful disposition, to happiness in the home and spirituality in the life.
Whatever of incentive the past may have lacked, no young husband, unless he is without true manhood, can look into the face of his devoted wife and dependent children without being inspired by the obligation which rests upon him to make adequate provision for every present need and future emergency. His energy, his effort, his wisdom are largely to determine not only the present and future, but also the temporal and eternal destiny of those who gather in dependence about him. Let these be your inspiration. Not all men can amass wealth; nor is this essential. Remember there are many things secured by industry and effort which are more precious than gold. While a competence is desirable, large wealth is seldoma great blessing. There is a world of sound philosophy in the declaration of a very rich man who said: "I worked like a slave until I was forty to make my fortune, and I have been watching it like a detective ever since—for which I have received only my lodging, food and clothes." A noble purpose, seconded by manly endeavor, will secure for your heart and your home what wealth cannot purchase.
We would be alike untrue to your best interests and unfaithful to Him who has called us to the delicate and difficult task we have undertaken in the preparation of these pages did we not say something concerning that which is highest and best in you, and which the Creator designed should dominate over every other department of your nature—namely, the religious or moral nature.
If you want your wife to be happy, do not ask her to struggle onward and upward alone in the Christian life. She will be lonely if the dearest of earthly friends is unwilling to travel heavenward with her. You will double her difficulties if in your life and example you deny the correctness of her precepts and her life. Even if you propose to yourself a life of moral rectitude, yet, to your children, you will become only a stationary guide-board, pointing to their feet the way in which God intended that you should be a living guide. You have not done your duty when you have simply permitted the Saviour to come into your home as the guest of your wife and the Saviour of your children.He comes to be a guest in your heart, as well as in your home. He comes not only to save your wife and your children, but to save you—to save the father, with the wife and the children.
It is not enough, my dear brother, that you give something now and then toward the support of the church, that you send your children to Sunday-school, that you attend divine service now and then. Your wife and children cannot go to heaven for you. Their lonely struggle is saddened by your absence, and the thought that after having dwelt together with you upon the earth you may be forever separated from them in eternity.
Let me appeal to you as an honest man. What is your duty in this matter? Your duty to your wife, to your children, to yourself, and to your God? If we were to look upon this subject simply in the light of temporal good, all the arguments would be in favor of living a Christian life.
Even if you were to consider this subject on its very lowest plane, you should desire for your wife and your family those larger material blessings which are secured by a religious life. Christians have not only the promise of the life that is to come, but they have the promise also of the life thatnowis. Paul says: "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." We grant you that not every Christian is encumbered with large wealth; neither is every irreligious man plunged into poverty.While there are here and there instances where ungodly men are possessors of large wealth, these instances are exceptional, and the Scriptural reason not difficult to find. Their riches may be due to the fulfillment of the promise that God will visit blessings upon the children of the righteous from generation to generation. These people may have had praying and God-fearing parents, and on that account the children, in harmony with Scriptural promise, are now being crowned with the consequent blessings. Or, it may be, as the Scripture declares, that the wealth of the wicked is being laid up for the just, and the present wicked possessor may simply be holding this wealth in trust for the righteous descendants who are to come after him. Or, it may be, that God is seeking the salvation of this ungodly individual, for He tells us that "the goodness of the Lord is designed to lead us to repentance."
The actual conditions are not to be determined by taking an exceptional example among the irreligious, but by dividing society as a whole into two classes, and then the result is seen at a glance. In the one class you have the profane, the vicious, the intemperate, the dishonest, the law-breakers, and the defiers of God and man. To this class belongs every man who staggers, reels and falls into the gutter, every tramp who walks the road, and nine-tenths of all the persons who fill our almshouses. It includes, with scarcely an exception, every man and woman who fill our prisons and reformatory institutions; those whocrowd the great tenements and live in filth and squalor in the slums of our cities; those whose bodies reek with physical and moral rottenness—these, and many others, constitute the class of the ungodly, and no attentive person can fail to observe that this is the character of that portion which the ungodly have in this world.
Now, turn to the other class. Walk up and down the streets where you find the most comfortable homes, the largest dwellings, the abodes of the most affluent and respectable in any city, and then answer the question, whether or no the wealth of the nation is not to-day largely in the hands of Christian men and Christian women? These are the people who have the best credit, who can draw checks for the largest amounts. Among this class you will find the most influential in business, the owners of our largest mercantile establishments. Men who direct and control the commerce of the world. Men who are at the head of our largest banking institutions, railroad and other corporations. But not only so. These are the people who dwell in the best homes, who eat the best food, who have the largest amount of material comforts. They are the people who enjoy the best health, who have the brightest minds, who produce the best books, the most helpful literature. They have the brightest eyes and the strongest bodies, and when cholera and plague come and sweep away men and women by thousands, it scarcely ever crosses the line which separates these from the intemperate and the vicious, who go down before these scourges like grass before the sickle. Truly, my dear friend, if you are to look at it only from this lowest plane of present good and material comfort, godly living will bring to you the promise of the life thatnowis, and in addition you will also have the promise of the life which isto come, a part in the first resurrection, a place at Christ's right hand, and the promise of sitting upon a throne judging the nations—you shall be among those who in triumph enter the eternal city, and receive crowns and robes and palms of victory and eternal rest at God's right hand.
You cannot afford to neglect the spiritual, which is the highest and best of your threefold nature. You should call your entire being into fullest exercise. A Christian is the highest type of manhood, and you owe it to your wife and to your children, as well as to yourself and to your Master, to be satisfied with nothing short of this. If troubled with doubt you will find the difficulty in your own heart. If infidels have filled your mind with misgiving, or suggested unbelief, read "Christianity's Challenge,"[A]"A Square Talk to Young Men,"[B]and various other volumes of the Anti-Infidel Library.[C]