Miss Frances Power Cobb is right, and she is wrong, when she says: "It
is a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by herself, if she likes, and
without any man to help her--who can turn a house into a home." She is
unquestionably right in her judgment, that it is a woman who can, if
she will, turn a house into a home, but she is much in the wrong in her
assertion that it is a woman all by herself, without any man to help
her, who can effect such a beneficial transformation. Woman possesses
magical powers in the way of building up a home; but home naturally
implies the presence and protection of man--and it is man himself, if
he likes, and without any woman to help him, who can give that home a
semblance of that place where, as some people believe, the wicked
suffer after they have "shuffled off this mortal coil." The husband
can never make the home, but he can succeed most admirably, if so he
choose, to unmake it, to banish its happiness and comfort, to exile
from it its ministering angels of peace and content, to shatter woman's
sweet and blessed work to its very foundation. Let the wife
concentrate, all day long, all her care and ingenuity and love upon
building up her little paradise at home, let her hands be ever so busy
in strewing fresh flowers around the domestic hearth, let her heart be
ever so happy throughout the day in the discharge of her domestic
duties, let her countenance be ever so beaming in her sweet
anticipation of the happy smile of appreciation, of the kind word of
sympathy and encouragement, which shall be her reward when her husband
returns; and then see this star in her domestic firmament enter,
sulking and surly, blind to all that her busy hands have so lovingly
prepared, grim and gruff to her and the little ones, who have been
fitted up in their neatest and cleanest, in which to welcome their
father's return, and then see whether you can agree with Miss Cobb's
assertion "that it is a woman, and only a woman--a woman all by
herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her--who can turn a
house into a home." See how her heart sinks, how her voice, full of
mirth and glee and music before his coming, dies in her throat, how the
little ones, full of merriment all day long, tremblingly hide in the
corner, or withdraw from the room; see how the intrusion of this grim
spectre of malcontent shuts the door upon domestic peace and happiness,
and withers every pious resolve to make home the dearest, sweetest,
most contented and most sacred spot on earth, and then calculate how
long, under such disheartening surroundings, woman will be able all by
herself, and without any man to help her, to prevent her house from
becoming anything and everything except a home.
While studying language, I observed that most of my mistakes in grammar
occurred in the feminine gender, and thinking over the cause of it, it
dawned upon me that, belonging to the masculine sex, I was in the habit
of thinking in that gender, and that my teachers were men, and that my
text-books and grammars had been written by men, and that the masculine
gender predominated so strongly in the exercises, that it was but
natural for me to make the greatest number of mistakes in the gender to
which the least attention had been given. When dealing with the social
and domestic question, the unbiased among us can not but observe a
similar failing. Many a serious mistake has been made by man when
speaking or writing concerning women, because our speakers and writers
and preachers and teachers belonged from the very beginning of
civilization, almost exclusively to the masculine sex, a sex which has
never tired in exalting itself at the expense of the weaker sex, in
emphasizing woman's inferiority to man, in asserting its rights, and in
complaining about its wrongs, and as woman did not write or speak for
herself, we have heard but little of her side of the story, know next
to nothing of her just rights and of her grievous wrongs, seldom dream
that she, too, has rights that must be respected, and suffers wrongs
that must be corrected.
The universities, colleges and all great institutions of learning of
this and other lands refused, until quite recently, to recognize woman
as a human being possessing a mind in need of training, and therefore
excluded her from their privileges, and the order of Odd-Fellows
partook of the same spirit and excluded the better half of the human
race from its lodge-rooms. Man had ever been a selfish, conceited,
cowardly tyrant from the day in which our father Adam disgraced his sex
by taking without question the forbidden fruit; and, after eating it,
crying with selfish, pusillanimous cowardice: "The woman thou gavest to
be with me gave me of the tree and I did eat," and he has always sought
to make and keep woman an inferior, dependent, submissive slave. To
this end he has striven to keep her in ignorance, exclude her from all
the avenues of knowledge, and then, because she did not possess the
knowledge that he had forbidden her, proclaimed throughout the world
that she was mentally inferior to man, and in consequence unfit to be
admitted to the various institutions and associations in which men
sought to improve their minds.
The object of Odd-Fellowship is to improve and elevate the character of
man, to enlighten his mind and enlarge the sphere of his affections,
and of course woman, as being mentally weak and naturally inferior to
man, was excluded from its sacred precincts. Now, however, things are
changed; nearly all educational institutions worthy of mention admit
women, and the Rebekah of today, emulating the Rebekah of old, will be
hand in hand with her brothers in all good works. She will accompany
him on his errands of mercy, watch beside the bedside of anguish,
foregoing pleasure to follow in the path of duty.
I would have every man know--who has a wife--that "mutual benefit from
harmonious partnership work" is an axiom in as full a sense as "in
union there is strength."
There are two sides to every question, and in this article I shall deal
with the woman's side. I want to present especially the wife's side of
the question to every Odd-Fellow, hoping that it will be of lasting
benefit in many ways. I know full well that only one accustomed to
deal with high and holy things, one whose glance is ever at sacred
things, one who, as it were, administers the treasures of the kingdom
of God, can fittingly touch this subject. It would be easy for me to
be a cheap wit, to rake up the old scandal of Mother Eve, to even
declaim with windy volubility that a woman betrayed the capital, that a
woman lost Mark Anthony the world and left old Troy in ashes. But far
be it from me! Rather would I assume a loftier mood; rather would I
strike a loftier note, and, with blind Homer, beg for an unwearied
tongue to chant the praise of woman. It is true Eve lost us Eden, but
in that garden of monotonous delight, had we been born there, we would
never have truly known what woman is. O, Felix Culpa! O, happy fault!
that has shown the world the mines of rich affection of woman's heart,
that else would never have been discovered. O, happy fault, that has
shown the world a wealth of woman's nature, her capability for love,
the radiance of her tenderness, her infinite pity, her unswerving
devotion, the solace of her presence in sickness and sorrow, the depth
and sweetness of her mercy.
A river of pure delight flowed through paradise, but blind Adam never
saw it, never dreamed of it until the flaming sword cut him off
forever; but he has since drank of it, and so has every man who has
ever tasted the sacramental wine of woman's true affection. The seamy
side of life has been laid bare to me. Its sorrows and its anguishes
have I often witnessed, but into that pool of Bethesida of the world's
anguish, with healing do I see ever come an angel, a pitying woman.
The influence of wife and mother is ever near me; their faces are the
most lovely; their hearts the most tender of all in this world--my
mother and my wife. And for their sake, and for the sake of all the
mothers, wives, sisters and daughters, whom I daily meet doing good, I
long and I earnestly yearn for the eloquence and grace to half express
the thoughts that rise within me of what the world owes woman.
To me every good woman is the fair fulfillment of dreamed delight. She
is the first at the cross and the last at the grave. All that is
highest and best in the world is nurtured and fed by the milk of her
nobility. The Christ of all greatness and hope was born of a woman.
The noble women of the world! O, would that the days of chivalry were
not past, that I might unsheath a lance in their name, for their glory!
But in our more prosaic days, what can I do but let the will suffice
for the deed, and say to the woman, "God bless you." I propose to let
her speak for herself today. I propose to accept her invitation to
accompany her through the various spheres of her domestic life, and see
whether she alone is responsible for that vice and crime and misfortune
which moralists and superintendents of penal and charity institutes
trace back to neglects at home; whether it is always the wife and
mother that is responsible for unhappiness in marriage and for the
increase of divorces; whether the husbands and fathers are always the
saints and martyrs, or whether they are not very, very often the root
of the whole evil themselves.
We retrace our steps and begin with our observations of the husband and
father a few months prior to that solemn day, on which he plighted his
vows of protection and faithfulness, on which he took into his care and
trust a woman's life and happiness, on which he sacredly promised, in
the name of God, and in the presence of witnesses, to love her, to
honor and cherish her, to provide for her, to be faithful to her in all
his obligations as husband, in youth and in old age, in sunshine and in
darkness, in prosperity and in adversity. We make first his
acquaintance in the happy days of his courtship. He is burning with
love. He is the facsimile of Shakespeare's lover, "sighing like a
furnace." Her praises are on his lips always. He avows himself her
slave and worships her as a goddess. It is in her company alone that
he can find happiness. Whether at home or in society, he is always at
her side. Life is dreary where she is not. He wonders how he could
have lived so long, or how he could continue existence, without her.
How regular and how punctual he is in his calls, and how he scowls at
the clock for running away with time so fast! Not a wish does she
express, no matter how unreasonable and extravagant, but he eagerly
gratifies it. How numerous his little attentions and his kind
remembrances! How thoughtful of her birthday, and how lavish in floral
tributes and costly presents! How numerous and how lengthy his letters
when separated! How sweet their moonlight walks and talks! How bright
her future, which he maps out! How many the pledges which he breathes
forth between his ardent kisses; never a harsh word shall break on her
ear, never a wish of hers shall be ungratified, never a trouble shall
mar her happiness; such a love as his has never been before, and will
never be again; he only lives for her happiness; his affection will
never cool, he will be a lover all his life; their whole wedded life
will be one never-waning honeymoon.
In the drama the plot usually ends with marriage. At the instant when
it is reached, when all obstacles are removed, the curtain falls, and
the young people have no further existence for us. But in the
practical world the play goes on. The curtain rises again, the same
personages reappear, only they frequently play different parts, and
what was before a comedy or a melo-drama often changes into a tragedy.
Sad and tearful scenes are often enacted by them. The misery and pain
are no longer inflicted by their former enemy, but by their own hands.
He, who prior to marriage overcame almost insurmountable obstacles to
make his lady fair his happy wife, now moves heaven and earth to make
that wife as miserable as possible.
A number of years have passed since last we observed the lover. He is
husband and father now, but what a change these few years have wrought
in him! Forgotten are the lover's vows. She that once his goddess
was, is now his slave. The fulsome flatterer of former times has
degenerated into a chronic fault-finder. With the change of her name
has begun his change of treatment of her. Cast aside are the many
courtesies and expressions of endearment that marked his conduct to her
prior to marriage, and which were the thousand golden threads that day
by day throughout their courtship wove their hearts closely into one.
No bouquets and no costly gifts any more. The anniversary of her birth
and of their wedding day passes by unnoticed by him. His former
efforts to entertain her, to make himself agreeable to her, have
altogether ceased. Rarer, and ever rarer, become his parting and his
coming kiss, his "good-bye, dear," and his "good evening, darling."
Fewer and fewer become his words of praise. Irksome becomes the task
of staying at home. He, who once upon a time found life dreary where
she was not, who vowed that in her company alone he found happiness,
who could not await the evening that would bring him to her, who
declared that his affection would never cool, and their whole wedded
life would be one continuous honeymoon, now finds her company tedious,
her home unattractive. He looks upon his home as his boarding and
lodging-house, upon his wife as the kitchen scullion, or as the nurse
of his children, for which services he generally allows her so many
dollars a week. At the breakfast table his face is buried in the
morning paper. He rises without interchanging a word with wife and
child. Absent from home all day long, he is absent still, even when
home in the evening. No sooner has he swallowed his meal, when he
buries himself in the newspaper for the rest of the evening, or dozes
on the sofa till bedtime, or he has an important business engagement
down town, or some meeting to attend, or an important engagement brings
other husbands to his house, where they transact any amount of business
in the exchange of diamonds for hearts, and clubs for spades.
All day long she has been toiling hard in her home, toiling with hand
and brain. She has been preacher and teacher, physician and druggist,
provider and manager, cook and laundress. The children had to be
attended to, purchases had to be made, the meals had to be provided,
the servants to be looked after, the house to be gotten in order; there
was mending and sewing and baking and cleaning and scrubbing and
scouring, which had to be done; there were the children's lessons, and
practicings that had to be looked after; there were the children's
ailments that had to be cured, and there were the hundred other things
the husband never dreams of, and which tax a woman's nerves and
strength as much, and often more, than his occupation taxes him. But
not a word of appreciation, not a look of sympathy and encouragement
from him, who never tired to sing her praises before they were married,
who vowed that never a harsh word should remotely break on her ear,
never a trouble should mar her happiness. On the contrary, he has no
end of faults to find, and she is doomed to listen to the same old
harangue on economy and saving. She has been saving and stinting until
she can save and stint no more. She has patched and mended and turned
and altered until she could patch and mend and alter no more, and still
the same complaints; the table costs too much, the dry goods store
bills are too long, the seamstress comes into the house too often, the
physician is consulted too much, and of such as these many more. Not a
word does he say about the expensive cigars he smokes, the wines he
drinks; about his frequent visits to the sample-room, and about the
liberality with which he treats his friends there; about the sumptuous
dinners he takes at noon in the down-town restaurant, while wife and
children content themselves at home with a frugal lunch; about the
money he loses at the card table, or in his bets on the games and races
and politics. And of the children he takes but little notice. He has
not seen them all day long, and he is too tired to be bothered with
them in the evening. He must have his rest and quiet. The mother
worried with them all day long, she may worry with them in the evening,
too. It is enough for him to supply her with the means wherewith to
care for their wants, further obligations he has none; these are a
mother's duties, but not a father's.
They tell a story of a learned preacher who had isolated himself from
his children on account of his dislike to their noise. One day, while
taking a walk, he was attracted by the beauty and wonderful
intelligence of a little boy. Inquiring of the nurse whose child it
was, she answered, much astonished: "Your own, reverend sir, your own."
Judging from the attention that some fathers bestow on their children,
I am inclined to believe that this learned preacher has many an
imitator among his sex, for whom not even the inexcusable excuse of
absorption in studies can be set up. I have read of a business man,
who one day thanked God that a commercial crisis had thrown him into
bankruptcy. He said it afforded him an opportunity to stay at home for
awhile, and get acquainted with his own family, and that for the first
time he learned to know the true worth of his wife, and that he found
his children the sweetest and dearest creatures that ever lived, and
not for all the business of the world would he again deprive himself of
their sweet association. Prior to his misfortune, or rather good
fortune, his business had so absorbed him that he had altogether
forgotten that there were sacred claims at home that demanded his
interest and his service.
Not all our orphaned children are in our orphan asylums, or under the
supervision of "The Orphans' Guardians." There are more of them at
home with their fathers and mothers, and especially among our
well-to-do families. There are children growing up who scarcely know
anything else of their father except that he is referred to during the
day by their mother when they are bad, as that dread personage who
would inflict a severe chastisement on them when he returns, or whose
presence silences their fun and makes their own absence agreeable. He
makes no effort to entertain them, takes no interest in their
pleasures, in their progress at school. He is simply their punisher,
but not their friend, and it is not at all surprising to see children
growing up with a conception of their father such as that little boy
had, who, when told by a minister of heaven, and of the meeting of the
departed there, asked: "And will father be there?" On being told that
"of course he would be there," he at once replied, "Then I don't want
to go." Occasionally wife and husband spend an evening out, or they
entertain company at home, and oh, what a transformation she observes
in him. In other people's homes, or when other people are present, his
stock of material for conversation is unlimited. Then and there he is
full of fun, bright and cheerful; when alone with his wife he has
scarcely a word to say; he moves about the house with the lofty
indifference of a lord, and with a heartless disregard of every member
of the household. At home he is cold and cross and boorish, in other
women's parlors he is polite and considerate and engaging. He has a
smile and a compliment for other women, none for his wife. If they
attend an evening reception, he brings his wife there, and he takes her
home; during the interval she has little, if any, of his company. She
may be shy, she may be a stranger, she may not be much accustomed to
society life, she may feel herself out of place in the gay assemblage,
she may be unentertained or bored or annoyed, it matters not to him as
long as he is having a good time with the boys, or is encircled by the
ladies fair, who unanimously think him the most gallant of men,
unrivaled in his wit and wisdom and conversational powers, and who
secretly sigh if but their husbands were like him.
To such an extent is this wife-neglect carried on that a lady not long
ago made a wager that, in nine cases out of ten, she would distinguish
between married and unmarried couples. She won the wager. When asked
to explain her method of discrimination, she said: "When you see a
gentleman and a lady walking in silence side by side, it is a married
couple; when their conversation is continuous and animated, and
smile-and-laugh-provoking, they are single. When a gentleman sits next
to a lady in the theatre, and never keeps his opera glass away from the
boxes and galleries and stage, he is her husband; when his eyes rest
more on her than on the stage, it is her lover. When a lady, who sits
at the side of a gentleman, drops her glove, and she stoops to hunt it,
it is a married couple; if he stoops quickly to pick it up it is an
unmarried couple. When a lady plays, and a gentleman stands near her,
and does not turn for her the pages of the music book, it is her
husband; when you see his fingers in eager readiness to turn the leaf,
it is not her husband."
There is in every true woman a spark of divinity, which glows in her
heart, and blazes into a most luminous light when a husband's love and
respect and sympathy and appreciation and encouragement fan that spark
into activity. But woe to the home where cruel hands quench that
flame. The sun is the heater and illuminator of our whole solar
system. The vast supplies which it sends forth daily must be
compensated, or else it would soon expend itself, and our world would
go to ruin. Nature, therefore, hurls millions of meteors every second
into the sun's fiery furnace to keep up the supply of heat and light.
The wife is the sun of the household. Her womanly attributes give the
light and warmth and happiness of the home to all who cluster around
her. But a wife's love and self-sacrifice for her home are not
infinite. They soon exhaust themselves, where love is unreturned,
where a husband is a tyrant, where self-sacrifice is unappreciated,
where faithful and prudent industry is accepted as a labor of duty, and
not as a labor of love, where she is simply regarded as his
housekeeper, and not as his devoted helpmate, where his presence alone
is sufficient to cast gloom and fear over the entire household. Woman
was made to bless mankind, but also to be blessed in return; to make
society better for forming a part thereof, but also to receive some
recognition for her work.
Endurance is woman's prerogative. Suffering is her heirloom.
Disasters, which would crush the spirit of man, often turn her heart to
steel, and she performs deeds grand and heroic. Disheartened by
continuous neglect, she will make heroic efforts to throw her influence
all the more affectionately over her home. Wounded deeper and ever
deeper, she will toil on, hiding from the world the pangs of wounded
affection, "as the wounded dove will clasp its wings to its side and
cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals." But the
shafts of continuous neglect will pierce her heart at last--a husband's
continuous neglect extinguish, at last, the sacred flame upon the
domestic hearth. She, too, finds home irksome. She, too, learns to
find more pleasure abroad than in her home. She, too, thinks light of
liberties and indiscretions. The grown children learn to emulate their
parents' example, and seek their pleasures also abroad. The little
children are left to servants to finish the corruption begun by
parents. And so the home, the very spot designed by God to become the
chief school of human virtue, the seminary of social affections, the
keystone of the whole fabric of society, the germ-cell of civilization,
becomes a hotbed of corruption, and almost as often on account of a
husband's neglect and sins, as on account of a wife's ignorance or
frailties or failings. Our stock of advice to wives and mothers seems
inexhaustible. Almost every one of the stronger sex has his fling at
woman, and his remedy to offer, which, if immediately followed, will at
once eradicate unhappiness in marriage, decrease the number of
divorces, and lessen vice and crime in society.
Might not a little advice be also profitable to man? Is there not room
for improvement in the stronger sex as well as in the weaker? Reform
in the one sex will be of little benefit unless there is reform in the
other sex as well. Our husbands and our fathers, too, need reforming,
and that reform must begin very early in their lives, before yet they
enter into marriage, before yet they enter upon the days of their
courtship. Our young men need curbing. Youthful precocity must be
checked. "_Cito maturum cito putridum_" says the Latin, "soon ripe,
soon rotten." We allow our young men, some of them exceedingly young,
too many liberties. We allow them to sow too many wild oats. If their
intention is some day to take unto their care and keeping a woman's
life and happiness, to pluck from out a comfortable and contented home,
and from the embrace of devoted parents, a pure and happy and trusting
young woman, who has never felt the wrench and shock of life's storms,
nor the cold shoulder of neglect, nor the gnawing tooth of want, then
let them see to it in time that they may bring to her a heart as pure
and mind as uncorrupted, and character as unpolluted as they expect
from her.
The law of heredity, of transmission of ancestral poison, is as
operative in the male sex as in the female. A pure and healthy
offspring must be preceded by a pure and healthy parentage. A
rottening tree never produces luscious fruit. "Like begets like." An
enfeebled father means not only feebleness in the next generation, but
also perpetuated misery and vice and crime. Marriage is sacred and
necessary and obligatory, but not all marriages are so. There are some
marriages from which woman should recoil as much as she would from
death itself. Rather that death would woo her than a man--if I may be
permitted to honor him with that name--whose constitution is
undermined, whose strength is sapped, and whose marrow and blood are
poisoned. Rather an old maid than a profligate's nurse. Rather a life
of single blessedness than the housekeeper of a wreck of a husband.
Rather single and happy and stainless and conscience-free than a mother
of an unfortunate offspring, that have the sins of their father visited
upon them, and that shall one day curse their parents for having given
existence to them. Another remedy for unhappy marriages will be found
in the cessation, of the anxiety on the part of so many parents _to get
their daughters married off_. It is but natural that this constant
anxiety should make the daughter feel that she would like to lessen her
parents' dread, and cease being a trouble to them, especially when
there are younger sisters crowding fast upon her, and so she says
"Yes," even when the word almost chokes in her throat, even though she
knows in her heart that he is not her ideal, nor the man that will make
her happy. It is not true that any husband, who can support a wife, is
better than no husband. Marriage means more to a sensible woman than
an alliance with a husband for the sake of being clothed and fed and
housed. She has a heart and soul and mind that have their wants, and
if they be starved, unhappy marriage, if nothing worse, is the result.
Mothers and fathers! Have you watched over your daughter from the day
of her birth; have you guarded her from infancy to girlhood, and from
girlhood to womanhood; have you suffered for her sake; have you
surrendered comforts and sacrificed pleasures for her sake; have you
toiled and stinted and saved for her sake; have you afforded her the
best education and all the pleasures and opportunities that your means
will allow, and all to wish yourselves rid of her; to think that any
husband, who can support your daughter--sometimes not even so much is
expected from him--no matter how old, how uncultured, how unsuitable to
her tastes and wants, is better than no husband? A father's personal
attention to the training of his children will in time reduce
materially unhappy marriages, and greatly lessen the miseries and vices
of society. He owes his children more than support and chastisement.
Society holds him responsible for their character. The duties of
training devolve upon the father as much as on the mother. A father's
wider experience and worldly wisdom prove valuable contributions to the
mother's simpler knowledge in the raising of their children. A
father's continuous absence, or neglects, or severity, or unkindness,
or heartlessness, has made more reprobates and scamps and criminals in
this world than all the failings of women combined. Think less of your
dignity and more of your duty. Rather that your child should love you
than fear you. You can maintain your authority and dignity by love and
gentleness as well as by frowns and threats and chastisements. You may
walk and talk and study and play with them, and yet have their full
respect. The great and warlike Agesilaus did not think it beneath him
to entertain his children during his leisure hours, to join them in all
their merry sports, and permit himself to crawl on his fours with his
little child upon his back. If you would raise good children let your
example at home be accordingly. As you will teach them so they will
act. If you are a devil they will scarcely be angels. Children are
keen observers. An old proverb says that a father is a looking-glass
by which children dress themselves. See to it, fathers, that the glass
be clean, so that your children's morals may be pure.
A little more memory on the part of the husband will prove a powerful
remedy for the eradication of unhappy marriages and for the lessening
of divorces. She is the same woman after marriage that she was during
the days of your courtship, and a good deal better. Why so forgetful
of all the sacred vows and solemn pledges which you plighted then? Why
so constant then and so inconstant now? Why so affable and faithful
and loving and attentive then, and why so inattentive and bitter and
sullen and neglectful now? Why such a profuseness then in your
courtesies and smiles and flowers and gifts and kisses, and why such a
lack of them now? Is it because of wrinkles? Is it because of her
faded beauty? She has lost it in your service. She has come honestly
by her wrinkles. She got them in the sick-bed, in the kitchen, in the
nursery, by the bed of your sick children, by the grave of your child,
by painful night-watches and overtaxing day toils, by your harsh words,
and by your heartless treatment. This is all she has in return for her
beauty and youth and cheerful mind and happy disposition, which she
laid at your feet when you asked her to join her destiny with yours. A
little courtesy, a kind attention, a bouquet of flowers, a small token,
a word of appreciation and of encouragement is not much to you, but it
is a world to your wife. Your smile is all the reward she craves. Her
heart thirsts for it, and when given, its effect upon her soul is as
the refreshing dew upon the withered grass. It is a mistake to believe
that she can draw in her married life on your love-deposits during
courtship. If love is to prosper, the supply must be ever fresh. The
love of the past will never satisfy the need of the present. Love
constantly and carefully cultivated will increase its blessings as
fruit trees double their bearing under the hand of the gardener. It
will be killed, as will the fruit tree, if the gardener's hand grows
neglectful and noxious influences are permitted to impede its growth.
Let your wife be your helpmate and not your housekeeper. She shares
your sorrows, your defeats, let her also share your thoughts and plans.
Unbosom your thoughts to her. Lay open to her your heart and soul.
Trust her with your confidence, she trusts you with hers. The men who
succeed are those who make confidants of their wives. The marriages
that are happy are those where husbands and wives have no thoughts
apart. The children that are well raised are those that have had the
example of loving and confiding parents before them. Proud of your
confidence, she will labor to deserve it. She will study to please
you. In your prosperity she will be your delight; your stay and
comfort in your adversity. She will return your confidence and
affection in full measure. Gloom will vanish from the hearth, and
happiness will hold dominion within the home. "Her children will rise
up before her and call her happy; and her husband will sing aloud her
praises."
Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it
is possible for both players to lose. Too often, after many
sugar-coated words, and several premeditated misdeals on both sides,
one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patiently angling in
the matrimonial pool, one draws a sunfish and the other a minnow. One
expects to capture a demigod, who hits the earth only in high places,
but when she has thoroughly analyzed him, she finds nothing genuine,
only a wilted chrysanthemum and a pair of patent leather shoes, while
he in return expected to wed a wingless angel who would make his Edenic
bower one long drawn out sigh of aesthetic bliss. The result is very
often that he is tied to a slattern, who slouches around the house with
her hair in tins, a dime novel in her hand, with a temper like aqua
fortis and a voice like a cat fight--a voice that would make a cub wolf
climb a tree; a fashionable butterfly, whose heart is in her finery and
her feathers; who neglects her home to train with a lot of intellectual
birds; whose glory is small talk; who saves her sweetest smiles for
society and her ill temper for her family altar. If I were tied to
such a female as that, do you know what I would do? You don't, eh?
Well, neither do I. There was a time, we are told, when to be a Roman
was to be greater than to be a king; yet there came a time when to be a
Roman was to be a vassal or a slave. Change is the order of the
universe, and nothing stands. We must go forward, or we must go
backward. We must press on to grander heights, to greater glory, or
see the laurels already won turned to ashes upon our brow. We may
sometimes slip; shadows may obscure our paths; the boulders may bruise
our feet; there may be months of mourning and days of agony; but
however dark the night, hope, a poising eagle, will ever burn above the
unrisen tomorrow. Trials we may have, and tribulations sore, but I say
unto you, O, brothers mine, that while God reigns and the human family
endures, this nation, born of our father's blood, and sanctified by our
mother's tears, shall not pass away, and under heaven, for this great
boon, this great blessing, we'll be indebted to the women of
America--God bless them. Finally, brethren, be serious while I impart
this concluding lesson: "She--was--a--good--wife--to--me. A good wife,
God bless her!" The words were spoken in trembling accents over a
coffin-lid. The woman asleep there had borne the heat and burden of
life's long day, and no one had ever heard her murmur; her hand was
quick to reach out in helping grasp to those who fell by the wayside,
and her feet were swift on errands of mercy; the heart of her husband
had trusted in her; he had left her to long hours of solitude, while he
amused himself in scenes in which she had no part. When boon
companions deserted him, when fickle affection selfishly departed, when
pleasure palled, he went home and found her waiting for him.
"Come from your long, long roving,
On life's sea so bleak and rough;
Come to me tender and loving,
And I shall be blest enough."
That hath been her long song, always on her lips or in her heart.
Children had been born to them. She had reared them almost alone--they
were gone! Her hand had led them to the uttermost edge of the morning
that has no noon. Then she had comforted him, and sent him out strong
and whole-hearted while she stayed at home and--cried. What can a
woman do but cry and trust? Well, she is at rest now. But she could
not die until he had promised to "bear up," not fret, but to remember
how happy they had been. They? Yes, it was even so.
It was an equal partnership, after all.
"She--was--a--good--wife--to--me." Oh, man! man! Why not have told
her so when her ears were not dulled by death? Why wait to say these
words over a coffin wherein lies a wasted, weary, gray-haired woman,
whose eyes have so long held that pathetic story of loss and suffering
and patient yearning, which so many women's eyes reveal to those who
weep? Why not have made the wilderness in her heart blossom like the
rose with the prodigality of your love? Now you would give worlds,
were they yours to give, to see the tears of joy your words would have
once caused, bejeweling the closed windows of her soul. It is too late.
"We have careful thoughts for the stranger,
And smiles for the sometime guest,
But oft for own,
The bitter tone,
Though we love our own the best."