What a Young Wife Ought to Know. Emma F. Angell Drake

it is here where the life happiness and usefulness of their children are concerned. But the wisdom of the parents must be used in the early days of acquaintance, before the attachment has blossomed into sentimental love. Then the wisdom is interposed too late.

      In discovering the character of your daughter’s associates, the family physician should be a valuable assistant. If he be a friend, as well as physician, he will gladly come to your aid.

      “A striking indication of the spreading uneasiness, in regard to marriage, is given in a bill recently introduced into the Ohio legislature, whereby it was proposed that all candidates for marital union should be required to undergo examination, and marriage be forbidden to such persons as shall be believed, through actual condition or hereditary tendencies, to be unfit for the function of parentage.”

      Our daughters have a right to consider the prospect of a comfortable support. The man who has not already accumulated sufficient to support two, or who has not in his business relations a sure promise of such ability, has no right to ask any woman to join her fortunes with his. Love which will grow and strengthen in poverty, is beautiful in sentiment, but the poverty which nourishes such love is not the poverty which one marries into, but into which they are dragged by circumstances beyond the husband’s control.

      It has been well said, that the young man who is a good son and brother will be a good husband; therefore it would be wise to accept an invitation to visit in the home of the one who seeks you as his mate. Mark well the consideration with which he treats his mother and sisters, his father and brothers, and judge whether it is assumed or natural. If he is one who demands much waiting upon at home, be sure he will expect the same service of you; and if you are not prepared to give it, or are not perfectly sure you can reform him in this respect, call a halt, and give frankly your reasons for saying no to his proposal. The leisure for repentance is far more wisely chosen before, than after marriage.

      Finally in the choice of a husband, the young woman should consider earnestly, whether she would like this man to be reproduced in her children. Whether he has the tenderness, the good judgment, the wise forethought, the patience, the forbearance, the authority, the nobility of character which will make him worthy the respect of wife and children.

      Honor, truth, courage, daring—properly restrained—purity, strength, ability to plan and achieve; authority, not stubborn, but based upon ability and power; wise judgment, and the unobtrusive use of it, are the qualities which woman desires, and rightly in the man she loves. While, in return she must bring to him as crowning qualities, or she has not dealt fairly, honor for honor, truth for truth, courage for courage, endurance for strength—in short faculty for faculty, not always the same, but an equivalent.

CHAPTER V.

       WHAT SHALL A YOUNG WIFE EXPECT TO BE TO HER HUSBAND?

       Table of Contents

      The Young Wife Should Seek to be Her Husband’s Equal, but not His Counterpart.—The Recognized Centre of the Home.—Woman’s True Greatness.—Man’s Helpmeet.—Mrs. Gladstone’s Part in Her Husband’s Greatness.—Should Attract Her Husband from the Club to the Home.—Continuing to be Attractive in Dress and Manners.—Should Accept both Wifehood and Motherhood.—Should Keep Pace with His Mental Growth.—Guarding Against Improper Use of Literary Clubs, Reading Circles, etc.—Solomon’s Picture of the Model Young Wife.—A Converted Heathen’s Estimate of His Christian Wife.

      “This is woman’s mission, more important than generation even—to renew the heart of man.—Protected and nourished by man, she in turn nourishes him with love.”—Jules Michelet.

      “The primal marriage was founded on instinct—a purely animal attribute. As humanity developed and language grew, instinct became transformed into love. To-day with the great proportion of the human family, marriage has ceased to be a nature-guided compact between the sexes, and has become a sordid money-soiled, commercial venture. Men and women are taught from infancy, that one of the chief aims of life is to marry ‘well,’ not ‘wisely.’ ”—John R. Stephenson.

      What shall the young wife expect to be to her husband? First his equal, but not his counterpart; his complement, not his synonym. As long as the world stands, woman must have her definite and specific work in it. So long as the home exists woman will be its recognized centre.

      A true woman would hardly care to exchange her delicate instinct, her deftness of finger, her versatile mind—which enables her to do the many little and great things in our everyday home-life equally well—her quick perception, her motherly all-aroundness, her sweet womanly loveliness, for any other marketable thing, or any other characteristic or capability attained by culture or training. A true woman is a woman, and she does not desire to be anything else, unless she can add it to her womanliness.

      If by force of circumstances she be driven out into the world to buy or sell, to scheme or plan for self or family support, she need not lose her womanly tenderness and attractiveness, nor need she barter these for a right to stand in any position which she can fill well and with propriety.

      She must needs, as she contemplates marriage, expect to be to the man she chooses, all that he lacks to make the two-in-one life a completed whole. If she have not the courage to attempt, and the purpose to accomplish this, she has no business to consider for a moment the marriage proposition. While similarity of tastes has much to do with happy mating, complementary accomplishments have also a large share in the true union of two lives.

      The woman must not only be desirous of knowing about her husband’s business, but should also seek to be capable of understanding and counselling in it. In perplexity, in trial, in prosperity, she should stand by his side, to advise, to comfort, to rejoice with him.

      There is a great deal of suggestiveness and significance in the estimate the Maker put upon the first wife created; namely, “an helpmeet for him,” that is, “suitable for him.” Nothing less than this should every woman be, if she is to fulfill the highest purpose of marriage.

      Some one has said, “The conspicuous fact in Mrs. Gladstone’s life, is that she was the helper and fellow-worker with her husband. What he did was largely possible because she made it so. She not merely lightened his cares; she removed them. She was the first and greatest of those women, who in our times have identified their own career and fame with those of their husband’s. She showed that no career of the modern woman is more important than that of wifehood, motherhood, and the builder of a home: yet she proved that public life and civic service, can be made sweet and strong, only as the influence of a noble woman is permeating its spirit. Mr. Gladstone’s public life was celebrated for its purity and lofty quality, and in Mrs. Gladstone’s devotion and affection we can see the secret of this.”

      Every young wife should be a good home-maker. An Eastern proverb says: “The wife is the household.” And the Japanese say, “The house rests upon the mother.” O woman! guard your treasure sacredly, this most priceless marriage gift, the title and blessing of home-keeper. She should make the home so attractive that no club can win him away from it in his leisure hours. She should make it, not only a haven of rest for him, but a place for delightful entertainment of his friends at all suitable times. However, the thoughtful husband will not invite his friends to his home, as a rule, without a word sent to his wife, that she may make any little needed preparation, and so be her happiest self with the guests.

      I remember the advice an aged minister gave to a bride on her wedding day. “My dear, be always so hospitable that no guest shall leave your home with other than feelings of delight.” She followed this advice to the letter and many times when busy with the cares of the home, she was interrupted by the advent of an unexpected guest, I have watched with interest the hearty welcome she gave them, and the real gladness she put into their lives by her true hospitality.

      The young wife should take not less, but more pains to make herself as attractive after as before marriage. A soiled ribbon, an untidy toilet, may seem trifling things, but they tell much of the esteem in which she holds her husband and her