| Home Making |
Chapter 2 |
Page 3 |
One is fondness, affectionate regard. When a man offers his hand in marriage to a woman he says by his act that his heart has made choice of her among all women, that he has for her a deeper and tenderer affection than for any other. At the marriage altar he solemnly pledges to her a continuance of that love until death. When the beauty has faded from her face and the lustre from her eyes, when old age has brought wrinkles, or when sickness, care or sorrow has left marks of wasting or marring, the faithful husband’s love is to remain deep and true as ever. His heart is still to choose his wife among all women and to find its truest delight in her.
But the word implies more than mere emotional fondness. The Scriptures give the measure of the love which husbands are to bear to their wives: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it.” There is no earthly line long enough to fathom the depths of Christ’s love for his Church, and no mortal can love in the same degree; yet in so far as that love can be repeated on earth every husband is required to repeat it. Christ gave himself for his Church; the husband is to give himself, to deny himself, utterly to forget himself, in simple and whole hearted devotion to his wife. In the true husband who realizes all that this divine command involves, selfishness dies at the marriage altar. He thinks no longer of his own comfort, but of his wife’s. He takes the storm himself and shelters her from its blast. He toils to support her. He denies himself that he may bring new pleasures and comforts to her. He counts no sacrifice too great to be made which will bring benefit to her.
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