| Home Making |
Chapter 2 |
Page 12 |
The spirit of this love requires a husband to honor his wife. He honored her before she was his wife. He saw in her his ideal of all that was noble, lovely and queenly. He showed her every mark of honor of which his soul was capable. Now that he has lifted her up to the throne of his heart, will he honor her less? Not less, but more and ever more, if he be a true husband and a manly man. He has taken her now into the closest and holiest relation of earth. He has linked her life with his own, so that henceforward whatever affects one affects both. If one is honored the other is exalted; if one is dishonored the other is debased. There is infinitely more reason why he should honor her now than before she was his wife.
The ways in which he should show her honor are countless. He will do it by providing for her wants on as generous a scale as his position and his means will justify. He will do it by making her sharer of all his own life. He will counsel with her about his business, advise with her concerning every new plan, and confide to her at every point the results of his undertakings. A true wife is not a child. When he chose her to be his wife he believed her to be worthy. She may not have all of his wisdom with regard to the affairs of business, but she may be able to make many a suggestion which will prove valuable, for women’s quick intuition often sees at a glance what men’s slow logic is long in discovering. Many a man owes to his wife’s wise counsel a large measure of his success. And there is many another man whose success would have been greater, or to whom failure would not have come, if he had sought or accepted his wife’s help.
But even if she is not qualified to give him great aid in his business plans, she loves him and is deeply interested in everything that he is doing. She is made happy by being taken into all his counsels, and thus lifted up close beside him in his life work; and he is made stronger, too, for energetic duty and for heroic achievement by her warm sympathy and by the inspiration of her cheerful encouragement. Whether the day bring defeat or victory, failure or success, he should confide all to her in the evening. If the day has been prosperous she has a right to share the gratification; if it has been adverse, she will want, as a true wife, to help her husband bear his burden and to whisper a new word of courage in his heart. Not only then does a man fail to give his wife due honor when he shuts her out of his own business life, but he also robs himself of that inspiration and help which every true wife is able to minister to her husband.
Page 12
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