p. 148 | WHAT “WIFE” MEANS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1882

WHAT “WIFE” MEANS.

Says Ruskin: “What do you think the beautiful word ‘wife’ comes from? It is the great word in which the English and Latin languages conquered the French and Greek. I hope the French will some day get a word for it instead of that femme. But what do you think it comes from? The great value of the Saxon words is that they mean something. Wife means ‘weaver.’ You must either be house-wives or house-moths, remember that. In the deep sense you must either weave men’s fortunes and embroider them, or feed upon and bring them to decay. Wherever a true wife comes, home is always around her. The stars may be over her head, the glow worm in the night’s cold grass may be the fire at her feet, but home is where she is, and for a noble woman it stretches far around her, better than houses ceiled with cedar or painted with vermillion—shedding its quiet light for those who else are homeless. This, I believe, is the woman’s true place and power.”