The home ought to be a cabinet, where all the affairs of the household
and all the affairs of business life come under comparison, inspection
and advisal. That is an absurd rule we hear abroad in the world, that
men ought never to take their business home. Ten thousand financial
failures would have been avoided if men had consulted with their
wives.
In the first place, woman has a capacity to judge of moral character
which man has not. Before you invite into your business partnership
any man, you ought to introduce him to your wife, and get her judgment
as to his capacity and his integrity. After five minutes' conversation
she will tell you as much about him as you will know at the close of
twenty years, and perhaps you may find out too late.
A man proposes to come into your business partnership. You take him to
your home. He tarries a little while, and is gone. You say to your
wife, "Well, what do you think of him?" She says, "I don't like him at
all." You say, "It's an absurd thing to form a prejudice against him
on so short an acquaintance. I have known him for years, and I have
never known any bad against him." "Well," she says, "I don't know why
I have formed that opinion, but I tell you to beware. Put none of your
financial interests in that man's keeping." Ten or fifteen years pass
by. You come home some night and say, "Well, my dear, you are right;
that man swindled me out of my last dollar." It is not because woman
is wiser than man. It is because God has given her that peculiar
intuition in regard to human character.
Now, you have no right to go into an enterprise which involves the
homestead, or the education of your children, or the fate of your
entire family, without home consultation. Of course, all this implies
that you did not marry a fool. If at the marriage altar you committed
suicide, you had better keep all your business affairs in your own
heart and head. But let us hope that you have sound common sense
presiding in your household.