What is a Wife? Well, that seems a question easily answered. But still
the answer depends upon circumstances; in fact, there seem to be no end
of replies to that little query, and answering the question, as one who
has taken a little notice of wives in general, I'll tell you what a wife
is sometimes. It is a something to be kicked and sworn at, and beaten,
knocked down and trampled upon, used in brutal ways that the vilest
barrow-man would hesitate about applying to his donkey for fear of
killing it, while when the poor woman is forced to appear before a
magistrate and prosecute, why--well, he is her husband after all, and
for lack of evidence the brute gets off. A wife is something to have
her hair dragged down and her head beaten against the wall; to be
neglected, half-starved, or made to work for the noble specimen of
creation who hulks about in front of public-houses, and scowls at every
decent-looking working man who passes him. She is the something who
sits up for him and puts his drunken highness to bed; nurses his
children; slaves for him worse than any drudge--ten times--no a hundred
times, for money would not buy a soul to slave as some women do for
their husbands. What is a wife? Why, often and often a poor, trusting,
simple-hearted woman, toiling in hard bondage till there's a place dug
for her in one of the cemeteries and she goes to rest.
But what is a wife? Is she not the God-given blessing to cheer a
working man's home? and while working with her husband to make that home
happy, is she not the sharer of his joys and sorrows,--the heart that he
can trust and confide in, though all the world turn their backs upon
him? Yes, this, and much more, _if her husband will_.
And now a word for those who have dissension and discomfort at the
cottage or lodgings, for it's hardly fair to disgrace that most holy of
names by calling some places I know _home_. And first just a word about
some of these miserable spots, and let's try and find a few causes for
there being one-roomed places, badly furnished or not furnished at all,
for the rickety chairs and beggarly bed and odds and ends are not worthy
the name; children with no shoes, dirty clothes, dirty faces, dirtier
hands, and dirtiest noses. The wife--oh, desecration of the sacred
name!--a sour-faced, thinly-clad, mean-looking, untidy-haired, sorrowful
woman, dividing her time between scolding the children and "rubbing
out," not washing, some odds and ends of clothes in a brown pan--the
wash-tub leaked, so it was split up and burned--and then hanging the
rags upon strings stretched from one side of the room to the other, just
as if put there on purpose to catch "the master's" hat and knock it off
when he comes home from work.
Well, there are two sides to every question, and one reason for there
being such wretched places is this:--Young folks get wed after the good
old fashion invented some six thousand years ago, when Eve must have
blushed and turned away her head and let her hand stay in Adam's; and
while the days are young all goes well, but sometimes Betsy--that's the
wife, you know--thinks there's no call to be so particular about her
hair now as she used to be before Tom married her, and so puts in the
thin end of a wedge that blasts the happiness of her future life.
What strong language, isn't it? Betsy does not make her hair so smooth
as she used to, and so puts in the thin end of a wedge that blasts the
happiness of her future life. Strong words, sweeping words, but true as
any that were ever written, for that simple act of neglect, that wanting
of pride in her appearance and innocent coquetry to please her husband,
is deadly, ruinous, to love and esteem, and altogether a something that
should be shuddered at by every woman in England.
The unbrushed hair leads to other little acts of neglect which creep in
slowly, but so surely; shoes get down at heel, dresses torn and
unhooked, and then the disorder slowly spreads to the children, then to
the furniture, and so on, step by step, till Tom stands leaning against
the wall looking upon the wreck before him, and wondering how it is
possible that the slovenly, half-dirty woman before him can have grown
out of that smart, bright-eyed servant lass he once wed.
But there it is--there's the fact before him; that's Betsy sure enough--
at least that's the present Betsy, not the Betsy of old--and, somehow or
another, Tom puts his hands in his pockets, sighs very deeply, and then
goes out and loiters about the streets.
"Just arf a pint, Tom," says a mate he meets, whose wife is suffering
from the same disease; and Tom says he will, and they go in where
there's a clean sanded floor, no noisy children, a bright fire, and some
dressed up and doctored decoction sold to the poor fellows as beer.
Next time it's Tom says to the other--"Just arf a pint, Sam;" and Sam
says he will. But the mischief is they don't have "arf a pint," but a
good many half-pints; and at last every Saturday night there's an ugly
score up that gets paid out of the wages before any money goes home;
while Betsy says Tom has got to be so fond of the public-house that he
never sits at home now, while the money he spends is shameful.
"Bet, Bet, Bet--and whose fault is it?"
"Not mine, I'm sure," says Betsy in a very shrill voice, as she bridles
up.
"Wrong, Betsy; for it is your fault, and yours alone."
"There," cries Betsy; "the cruel injustice of the thing!" And then she
would go on for nearly half-an-hour, and tell all the neighbours what we
have said. But we must stop her. So, go to, Betsy, thou wife of the
British working man, for in hundreds, nay, thousands of cases, it is
your fault, and yours alone; and, where it is not, I say, may the great
God help and pity you! for yours is indeed a pitiful case.
Come, now, listen to a few words, and don't frown. There's the trace as
yet of that bonny face that won poor Tom. He'll come back cross and
surly to-night. Never mind: try and bring back that same old smile that
used to greet him. Smooth that tangled hair and drive some of the
wrinkles out of your forehead--all will not go; make the best of the
common cotton dress--in short, as of old, "clean yourself" of an
afternoon; and, if you've a trace, a spark of love for your husband and
yourself, hide away and stuff into a corner--under the bed--anywhere--
that household demon, the wash-tub or pan; while, as to the rubbed-out
clothes, bundle them up anywhere till he is out of sight again. Think
of the old times, and start with new rules. It will be hard work, but
you will reap such a smiling, God-blessed harvest that tears of
thanksgiving will some day come to your eyes, and you will weep and
bless the change. You have children; well, thank God for them. You
were a child once yourself; you are a child now in the hands of a great
and patient Father who bears with your complaining. Well; those
children; they are dirty and noisy, but there are cures--simple remedies
for both evils. If their precious little fasts are only broken on bread
and treacle, let them be broken at regular hours decently and in order,
and don't have them crumbling the sticky bread all over the floor,
running about the room, or up and down the stairs, or in the street.
Get them to bed at regular times, and manage them kindly, firmly; and
don't snarl and strike one day, and spoil and indulge the next. Make
the best of your home, however beggarly; but, in spite of all, in your
efforts to have it clean, don't let Tom see you cleaning.
Now, don't think after years of neglect, that because you have now made
no end of improvement all is going to be as it used. Don't think it.
You let in the thin end of the wedge over that stray hair, and things
have gone gradually wrong. Just so: and you must by slow, painful
degrees, get that wedge gradually worked back a little bit and a little
bit, while all your patience and perseverance will be so sorely tried,
that in sheer despair you'll often say, "There: it's of no use!" But it
is of use, and of the greatest of use, and even though he may not show
it, Tom can see the difference and feel those household spirits tugging
at his heart-strings, and saying, when at public-house, "Come away!" in
tones that he finds it hard to resist. Brutal men there are in plenty,
we know, but, God be thanked for it! how many of our men have the heart
in the right place, and you women of England can touch it if you will.
Say your home, through long neglect, has become bare and beggarly.
Never mind; make the best of it. It's wonderful what a ha'porth of
hearthstone, a ha'porth of blacklead, and a good heart will do. And
that isn't all, you foolish woman; for there's a bright and glorious
light that can shine out of a loving woman's face and make the humblest
home a palace with its happy radiance. Say your room is bare. What
then? Does Tom go to a well-furnished place to spend his money? No;
but to a room of hard, bare forms and settles, and common tables sticky
and gum-ringed, while the floor, well sanded, grits beneath his feet.
Go to, Betsy, never mind the bareness, for you have a glorifying sun
within you, whose radiance can brighten the roughest, thorniest way.
Look out here at this bare court, dull, dingy, filthy, frowsy, misery
stricken. The sun comes from behind yon cloud, and lo! the place is
altered so that even your very heart leaps at the change, and your next
breath is a sigh of pleasure. And have you not for years been shrouding
your face in clouds and keeping them lingering about your home?
Thousands of you have: take heart, and let the sun appear everywhere
that Tom will cast his eye. Why, the reflection shall so gladden your
own spirit that it shall leap for joy, while you know within yourself
that you have done your duty.
Young wives, beware--take heed of the first stray hair and jealously
prison it again, for by that single frail filament perhaps hangs yours,
your husband's, your children's future welfare; so never let Tom be less
proud of you than in the days of old.
What is a wife? The prop or stay of a man, the balance that shall
steady him through life, and make him--the weaker vessel--give forth
when struck a sonorous, honest, clear tone. _He_ is the weaker vessel,
and yours are the hands to hold him fast.
But it cannot always be so, for in spite of all a loving heart can do
there are brutes--we won't call them men--we won't own them as belonging
to our ranks, but drum them out--brutes, before whom the jewel of a true
wife's love is as the pearl cast before swine. But, there; leave we
them to their wallow, for it is defiling paper to quote their evil ways.
What is a wife? A burden? a care? Oh no, she is what we choose to make
her: a constant spring of bright refreshing water, ready for us at all
times during our journey through life--a confidant--one we can turn to
for help when stricken down by some disease, or the wounds met with in
the battle of life, ready to smooth our pillow, and cool the weary,
aching head. There; when looking upon some of the poor, dejected,
neglected, half-forsaken women we see around, it is enough to make a
man's heart swell with indignation and scorn for those who have cast
aside so great a treasure, and made of it a slave.
There are faults enough on both sides, but many a happy home, many a
simple domestic hearth, has been opened out or swept and garnished ready
for the reception of a demon of discord, whose web once spun over the
place, can perhaps never be torn away. But turn we again to the hopeful
side of the question. Let the sun of your love shine forth, oh woman,
brightly upon your home, however bare, and fight out the good fight with
undying faith. And young wife, you of a few days, weeks, months,
remember the first stray hair.