The Wedding Ring: A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating MatrimonyTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
The Wedding Ring: A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating Matrimony
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Marriage
Further, I charge you, let there be no outside interference with the
conjugal relation. Neither neighbor nor confidential friend, nor
brother, nor sister, nor father, nor mother, have a right to come in
here. The married gossip will come around, and by the hour tell you
how she manages her husband. You tell her plainly that if she will
attend to the affairs of her household you will attend to yours. What
damage some people do with their tongues! Nature indicates that the
tongue is a dangerous thing, by the fact that it is shut in, first by
a barricade of teeth, and then by the door of the lips. One insidious
talker can keep a whole neighborhood badly stirred up. The Apostle
Peter excoriated these busybodies in other people's matters, and St.
Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians and to Timothy, gives them a
sharp dig, and the good housewife will be on the lookout for them, and
never return their calls, and treat them with coldest frigidity. For
this reason, better keep house as soon as possible. Some people are
opposed to them, but I thank God for what are called flats in these
cities. They put a separate home within the means of nearly all the
population. In your married relations you do not need any advice. If
you and your husband have not skill enough to get along well alone,
with all the advice you can import you will get along worse. What you
want for your craft on this voyage is plenty of sea-room.
BE INTELLIGENT.
I charge you, also, make yourself the intelligent companion of your
husband. What with these floods of newspapers and books there is no
excuse for the wife's ignorance either about the present or the past.
If you have no more than a half-hour every day to yourself you may
fill your mind with entertaining and useful knowledge. Let the
merchant's wife read up on all mercantile questions, and the
mechanic's wife on all that pertains to his style of work, and the
professional man's wife on all the legal, or medical, or theological,
or political discussions of the day. It is very stupid for a man,
after having been amid active minds all day, to find his wife without
information or opinions on anything. If the wife knows nothing about
what is going on in the world, after the tea-hour has passed, and the
husband has read the newspaper, he will have an engagement and must
"go and see a man." In nine cases out of ten when a man does not stay
at home in the evening, unless positive duty calls him away, it is
because there is nothing to stay for. He would rather talk with his
wife than anyone else if she could talk as well.
ADORN THE HOME.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account