Then what politeness, what distillation of smiles, what graciousness,
sweet as the peach orchard in blossom week! Now, some of you come in
and put your hat on the rack and scowl, and say: "Lost money to-day!"
and you sit down at the table and criticise the way the food is
cooked. You shove back before the others are done eating, and snatch
up the evening paper and read, oblivious of what has been going on in
that home all day. The children are in awe before the domestic
autocrat. Bubbling over with fun, yet they must be quiet; with
healthful curiosity, yet they must ask no questions. The wife has had
enough annoyances in the nursery, and parlor, and kitchen to fill her
nerves with nettles and spikes. As you have provided the money for
food and wardrobe, you feel you have done all required of you. Toward
the good cheer, and the intelligent improvement, and the moral
entertainment of that home, which at the longest can last but a few
years, you are doing nothing. You seem to have no realization of the
fact that soon these children will be grown up or in their sepulchres,
and will be far removed from your influence, and that the wife will
soon end her earthly mission, and that house will be occupied by
others, and you yourself will be gone.
Gentlemen, fulfill your contracts. Christian marriage is an affectional
bargain. In heathen lands a man wins his wife by achievements. In some
countries wives are bought by the payment of so many dollars, as so many
cattle or sheep. In one country the man gets on a horse and rides down
where a group of women are standing, and seizes one of them by the hair,
and lifts her, struggling and resisting, on his horse, and if her
brothers and friends do not overtake her before she gets to the jungle,
she is his lawful wife. In another land the masculine candidate for
marriage is beaten by the club of the one whom he would make his bride.
If he cries out under the pounding, he is rejected. If he receives the
blows uncomplainingly, she is his by right. Endurance, and bravery, and
skill decide the marriage in barbarous lands, but Christian marriage is
a voluntary bargain, in which you promise protection, support,
companionship and love.