"And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he
slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its
place. And of the rib which he took from the man God formed a woman,
and brought her to the man. And the man said, This now is bone of my
bones, and flesh of my flesh. This shall be called Woman, because from
man was she taken. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh."[A]
_Woman was taken out of man_. It is man's nature to seek to get her
back. He feels that a part of _him_ is away from him, until he obtains
her. Long years before he sees the woman whom he feels God designed to
be his wife, if he be a Christian, believing that she is on the earth,
he prays for her weal.
[Footnote A: Gen. ii. 21-24.]
"_Taken out of man!_" How significant these words! Man, without woman,
wants completeness--physically, mentally, and spiritually. First,
physically. The fact is noticeable that short men often marry tall
women, and tall men marry short women. Nervous men marry women who are
opposites to them in temperament. This is not a happen so, for that
which so often to the unreflecting mind seems unnatural and absurd,
to the thinking soul appears as an evidence of God's provident care.
Second, mentally. Man desires in his wife that which he lacks. A
bookish man seldom desires a wife devoted to the same branch of
literature, unless she works as a helpmeet. In taste and in sentiment
there must be harmony without rivalry. They must bring products to
the common garner, gathered from varying pursuits and from different
fields of thought. In music the same law rules. Man, from his very
nature, finds in woman a helper in song. Their voices blend in
harmony, and give volume, symphony, and variety to the melody
produced. Jenny Lind married her assistant, because in sympathy they
were one. He was essential to her womanly strength, and without her,
he was a mere cipher in the musical world. Together they were a power,
felt and acknowledged.
A man full of thought and of genius requires for a wife, not only one
who can understand his moods and enjoy his creations, but one who is
content to take care of the home, and, perhaps, to manage the business
affairs; while many a woman of genius and ability links her fortunes
with a plain and appreciative husband, who gladly affords her every
means in his power to work in her special sphere. When the wife
refuses to act thus wifely, because of her talent, the happiness
of the home is imperilled, and the children suffer quite as much,
comparatively, as they do in those manufacturing neighborhoods where
the wife forsakes the home for the shop, and gives up the vocation
of woman to do the work which belongs to man. God made them male and
female. He fitted each for separate duties, not for the same duties.
Each fills a sphere when each discharges the duties enjoined upon them
by their Creator and by society. Wonderful women there are; few of
them care to duplicate their power. They prefer to obtain by marriage
that which they have not, and which must be supplied by material from
without. Homely people oftentimes find beautiful ones to mate them.
The rugged seeks the weak. The nervous, the lymphatic. Counterpart
that which makes itself complete. This tendency to assimilate is
often carried to extremes, because all naturally love that which they
possess, and come to prize highly those who regard it with favor.
Hence, poor men sometimes marry rich wives, and seldom fail to give
something in return. The story is familiar of the two foppish young
men who were said to have met at a noted hotel or on change, when one
accosted the other by the question, "Who did you marry?" "Ah," said
he, "I married fifty thousand dollars. I forget her other name."
Such men, however, are exceptions to the rule. There are brainless
creatures called men, who will marry a pretty face, though the heart
and brain be uncultured, provided there be associated with her
sufficient of this world's goods to gratify a mercenary ambition; but
the majority, both of men and women, wisely prefer to marry money in
a partner rather than money with a partner. The world has a profound
contempt for shallow, fussy, empty people, no matter what positions
they may occupy.
All sympathize with the rebuke administered to a so-called lady of
quality by a Quaker gentleman, who occupied a seat near her in a
public coach. She wore an elegant lace shawl, and was dressed to the
top of the fashion, but was suffering from the cold. Shivering and
shaking, she inquired, "What shall I do to get warm?" "_Thee had
better put on another breastpin_," answered old Broadbrim. The rebuke
was timely. Woman degrades herself when she surrenders to fashion that
which helps the woman, and which aids her in securing the confidence,
the friendship, the respect, and admiration of sensible men.
The truth embodied in the words, "This shall be called Woman, because
_from man was she taken_" sheds light upon many a mysterious chapter
in life, reconciles the union of contraries in accordance with the law
of God, and fills wide realms of life with the radiance of hope, which
otherwise would remain mantled in perpetual gloom. If we depended upon
those who are like ourselves to sympathize with us, and gird us with
strength, we should utterly fail. Oaks cannot lend support to oaks.
The vine can do this for the oak, and the oak can give support to the
vine; but an oak cannot give strength to its kindred while fulfilling
the functions of its life. The same law rules in the mental world.
Genius seldom applauds genius, working in its own realm. Very likely
it loathes it. The tributes paid to labor are given by the soft-handed
rather than by the hard-handed sons of toil. This principle lies back
of the appreciation, the commendation, and the support rendered by the
different classes of a community to each other.
The God-given and Christ-restored thought of equality between the
sexes is seen in the household partnership, where the woman looks for
a "smart, but kind" husband, the man for a "capable, sweet-tempered"
wife. The man furnishes the house, the woman regulates it. Their
relation is one of mutual esteem, mutual dependence. Their talk is of
business; their affection shows itself by practical kindness. They
know that life goes more smoothly and cheerfully to each for the
other's aid; they are grateful and content. The wife praises her
husband as a "good provider;" the husband, in return, compliments her
as a capital housekeeper. This relation is good as far as it goes;
but the heart of the man or woman is unsatisfied, if to household
partnership intellectual companionship be not added.
Men can hire their houses kept. Love cannot be purchased. Soul
communion is the gift of God. It is very often enjoyed on earth. Men
engaged in public life, literary men and artists, have often found
in their wives companions and confidants in thought, no less than in
feeling. And as the intellectual development of woman has spread
wider and risen higher, they have, not unfrequently, shared the same
employments.
Thirdly, spiritual. The highest grade of marriage union is the
spiritual, which may be expressed as a pilgrimage towards a common
shrine.
There is something in every man which he feels to be the essential
thing about him. This it is which he desires to have loved. Neglect
what else you choose, you must not neglect that. It is the spiritual
part of man,--the God-given characteristic which longs for sympathy.
Men feel that this want has been met when they say, "Such a one
understands me, knows me, sees me, is in sympathy with me." Such
moments are to all of priceless value. Whoever meets this want is a
boon from God. No matter what the complexion, nor how the features
seem: soul meets soul. The heart feels a new life. The union is
formed. _Call it affinity, or what you will_, they love in one another
the future good which they aid one another to unfold. This includes
home sympathies and household wisdom. Such fellowship makes of home a
joy, and of toil a delight. When first the joy is reached, a foretaste
of heaven is enjoyed. "For it is the one rift of heaven which makes
all heaven appear possible; the ecstasy of hope and faith, out of
which grows the love which is our strongest mortal instinct and
intimation of immortality."
Women are as conscious of this feeling as are men. There are times
when women meet their counterpart. The nature they long for and seek
after with unutterable longing, is before them. Finding it, they
recognize their lord, under whose protection they take shelter, and
to whose rule they submit, because of love which masters and controls
them. The heart cries out for a person--not for things. Spirit
desires spirit; soul yearns for soul. It is the genius of woman to be
electrical in movement, intuitive in penetration, and spiritual in
tendency. She excels not so easily in classification or recreation as
in an instinctive seizure of causes, and a simple breathing out of
what she receives, that has the singleness of life, rather than the
selecting and energizing of art. More native is it to her to be the
living model of the artist, than to set apart from herself any one
form in objective reality. More native to inspire and receive the poem
than to create it. In so far as soul is in her completely developed,
all soul is the same; but in so far as it is modified in her as
woman, it flows, it breathes, it sings, rather than deposits soil,
or furnishes work; and that which is especially feminine, flushes in
blossom the face of the earth, and pervades, like air and water, all
this seeming solid globe, daily renewing and purifying its life. Such
is the especial feminine element which man desires as a helper, and
which is suited to him, and which compels him to exclaim, "O, my God,
give it to me _for mine_!"
It is said, "A woman will sometimes idealize a very inferior man,
until her love for him exalts him into something better than he
originally was, and her into little short of an angel; but a man
almost invariably drops to the level of the woman he is in love with.
He cannot raise her; but she can almost unlimitedly deteriorate him."
This was true of Adam. Eve, sinning, brought him to her level. Why
this should be, Heaven knows; but so it constantly is. We have but
to look around us, with ordinary observation, in order to see that a
man's destiny, more than even a woman's, depends far less upon the
good or ill fortune of his wooing than upon the sort of woman with
whom he falls in love.
Before a man loves, he is under obligations to himself, to his future,
and to the world, to ask himself, Is this woman suited to me? Will she
help me to fulfil my mission? Does she supply my want? Can I recognize
her as God's gift to me? If Yes, then he is right in loving; for
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all."
A woman, writing of woman, has truly said, "There are but two ways
open to any woman. If she loves a man, and he does not love her, to
give him up may be a horrible pang and loss; but it cannot be termed
a sacrifice: she resigns what she never had. But if he does love her,
and she knows it, and if she loves him, she has a right, in spite of
the whole world, to hold to him till death do them part. She is bound
to marry him, though twenty other women loved him, and broke their
hearts in loving him. He is not theirs, but hers; and to have her for
his wife is his right and her duty." "And in this world are so many
contradictory views of duty and exaggerated notions of light, so many
false sacrifices and remunerations, weak even to wickedness, that
it is but fair sometimes to uphold the right of love,--love sole,
absolute, and paramount,--firmly holding its own, and submitting to
nothing and no one, except the laws of God and righteousness." Well
and truthfully spoken. Lift up this principle, and behold how it
showers benedictions upon all classes and upon all men.
Much is said against amalgamation, as though it were a crime. There is
no crime in it or about it. There is much of prejudice, but no crime.
Soul marries soul. If a white man loves the soul of a black woman,
there is no law in God's code forbidding the union. God made of one
blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.
Complexions may differ, owing to climate, or temperament, but the
blood is the same. The race has a common Father in God.
In this intermingling of races, coming to this land from all climes,
we perceive the seedling of a glorious hope. The future American is to
be the product of this blending of the distinctive features of all the
various nations of earth.
Against this result there is an immense amount of prejudice, born
of slavery; but in Europe it does not exist, nor is it in fact so
universal in this land as many suppose. Many a white man has found his
helpmeet in a black woman, and many more will find helpmeets from the
same source.
2. "_Woman was taken out of man_." There is significance in the
locality from which she was taken. Not from the superior part, that
she might think herself superior to man, or endowed with the right to
rule him. Her sin consisted in her failing to recognize the position
assigned. She was created an associate and an equal, and acted
independently, and as an adviser. She took advantage of her position
as wife, and became an ally of Satan.
She was not taken from an inferior portion of his body, that he might
think her inferior to himself, and to be trampled on by him, but out
of his side,--from his rib,--that she might appear to be equal to him;
and from a part near his heart, and under his arm, to show that she
should be affectionately loved by him, and be always under his care
and protection.
Wherever man has failed to recognize this truth society has gone back
to barbarism, and the very conception of a home has been banished from
the mind. In the East man rules woman as lord. She is his slave; and
in the Arabic language there is no word meaning "home." Christian
civilization lifts woman up, and thrones her in the heart of a _home_.
She was made from "bone and flesh,"--quickened dust,--and so in her
make and constitution she is of superior quality and of finer mould.
The Hebrew word translated "made," means _built_. From the rib God
built this woman. How instructive the fact! Woman added to man is the
foundation of the home or family. She is built out of man. Man is
necessary to her development. A man can continue the work begun by
God. He can build up a woman; and as he builds her up he builds up
himself. She is also a builder. She builds up a home, or degrades it.
If woman is honored in a home, she makes it honorable.
At the outset she was man's equal: perhaps she may have thought
herself to be superior to him--more refined, of better material. She
forgot her place, and ignored her sphere, and lost all. She was not
created as things were, out of nothing. She was meant to be something
better than a _thing_; and she must be something better than a thing,
or she is nothing. She was not formed as Adam was, out of the dust of
the earth. Had she been, perhaps she would not have disliked dust so
terribly. She is a part of man's life. This describes her mission. The
life of a woman who does not care to be a man's toy or ornament, but
desires rather to be his helpmeet,--supplying all he needs, as he
supplies all she needs,--is but the continuance, the flowing out and
flowing on of man's higher life, into the flowers of love, which
decorate the home, and make that chosen retreat the very portals of
heaven.
As man feels that in woman he finds the complement to himself, and
almost his other self, woman finds in man the same complement to
herself, and recognizes in him the ruler of her life, her friend,
her lover; and happy is she if she finds in him her husband, who
rightfully assumes his rights and his sovereignty.
3. "_God brought her unto man_." Woman is God's first gift to man.
She must never occupy a second place. In the heart she holds a first
place, or she holds none at all. The moment she holds a secondary
place she is ruined. It is in her power to hold the first place. To do
this, she must prize it; make sacrifices to keep it; almost, at times,
deny herself, and bear a cross, to hold on to it. Yet it is hers, and
God will see to it that she maintains her right.
"_God brought her_." Every husband in this world should feel that
his wife is God's gift to him, and it is his duty to study its
characteristics, and minister to them. Every man can make the partner
of his life a good wife, and can feel that she was God-given, and must
be used in such a manner that when the day of reckoning comes, he can
give a good account of the manner in which he has used this blessing.
To go to the judgment, and meet a broken-hearted woman, over whom man
has exercised tyranny, and to whom he has been a monster, until hope
died, and the grave became a refuge, will not be a pleasant meeting.
In this bestowal of woman upon man, we recognize two facts.
1. The father's right to give away his child--a right which exerts its
influence at the present time, and which every young man who seeks
properly the hand of woman is compelled to recognize. In that act of
Eden lie the rule and example to be followed by parents and children:
the one to dispose of their children, and the other to have the
consent of their parents in reaching conclusions upon which hinges the
destiny of the individual for time, and perhaps for eternity. Happy
the child that trusts a wise parent, and refuses to walk a path over
which the shadow of parental disapproval rests! Happy the parent who
finds pleasure in the fresh young love of the child, and watches the
opening flower and the ripening fruit with pride and pleasure.
This giving away of the child requires the enjoyment of perfect
confidence between father and daughter and mother and son.
God knew Eve, for he built her. He knew her heart, her mind, her
aspiration. A parent knows something of the child; and well it is for
both parent and child when this knowledge is perfect, and when the
relation subsisting between parents and children is such that home is
a place of consultation. A home without secrets, without closed doors,
and locked drawers and sugar-boxes,--a home where thought is free, and
mind is untrammelled, is the very gate of heaven.
There are homes where the children are excluded from counsel, from
love, from plan, from association. Those children live in a world
apart from their parents, and it will not be strange if they are swept
out by the waves of evil to ruin.
There are homes where the father shuts himself away from the wife and
children. To the children he is harsh, unsympathetic, and morose. Ah!
there is sorrow in that house. The mother--God bless her!--has a hard
time. She has to keep in with the father, and she will keep in with
the children. In that bundle of life the tendrils of her nature are
bound up. She fights a prolonged battle in regard to expenditure and
education. Happiness only comes when the household is one, and the
relations between father and children are perfect, as God designed
them to be.
Again, God gives his sanction not only to the truth that man's wants
can only be met by the gift of woman,--a fact which every man has
felt, and which causes every man to feel that somewhere on earth his
wife is living, who will recognize and welcome him to the bliss of
love and to the joy of companionship,--but this additional truth is
taught: Man has a right to marry. Love is no disgrace. It is the
pretence of it, for base purposes, which is disgraceful. The nuptial
vow was first whispered in the garden. God was sponsor, and all Eden
witnesses. This bond of union was God's gift to the race. The curse
did not touch it. The marriage vow and marriage rite, with the faith
in woman as a helpmeet, have survived the fall, and are our joy and
rejoicing at this time.
In conclusion, think of God's care for man, in providing woman as a
blessing. There is no necessity for man's being alone. Some one waits
to bless or has blessed him. Let us make more of our wives and sisters
than ever before. Let us build them up in love and in those generous
qualities which fit woman for her high destiny in this fallen world.
2. Think, woman, of your noble mission. You are to be a help to man.
You are to help him morally and spiritually. For this God created you.
For this he preserves you. "You are queens and bondmaids too, as royal
when you serve as when you rule." Man must respect you, for when
man loses his respect for woman he is lost. He goes down, down to
irremediable ruin. With woman as God designed her, man gets much of
Eden back, for in Christ she is reconciled to God. It is for man and
woman to get back Eden. Christ came to be our common helper. He is
woman's Saviour as well as man's, and offers to all that help which
changes life's desert into a garden, and life's gloom into the
brilliancy of an eternal day.
"Hail, woman! Hail, thou faithful wife and mother,
The latest, choicest part of heaven's great plan.
None fills thy peerless place at home, no other
Helpmeet is found for laboring, suffering man.
Hail, thou home circle, where, at day's decline,
Her moulding power, her radiant virtues shine!
Not in the church to rule or teach, her place;
Not in the mart of trade, or senate halls;
Not the wild, festive scene is hers to grace;
Not Fashion's altar her its victim calls;
Not here her field of triumph; but alone
She moves the queen of her own quiet home."