Common Responsibility by Christian Union

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 7, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 18.

Common Responsibility.

By Christian Union

WIVES are accepted in a general way as the moral educators of their husbands. And from the force of habit, when a man is reported to have failed morally, the question comes to the mind, What kind of a wife had he? Too often must the answer be, "Extravagant," "Socially ambitious," "Determined to dress and live as well as or better than her associates." But it certainly will be acknowledged that when a man allows his wife to be his tempter, allows her weakness to lead him to sin, he has given positive evidence of moral infirmity, and is one who would yield with little effort of will to temptation outside of home.

It is not true that women are the divinely appointed moral guardians of men. A true woman can, and does, influence a man for good, but so does a good man. Personal influence is not a question of sex, but of character, of force.

It is an unexpressed thought in the minds of many, that woman is a sort of moral shears, designed to clip and cut off the fungous and superfluous growth on a man’s moral nature. This is one of the reasons why we find young men living fast lives, and justifying and excusing themselves on the ground that they will soon marry, settle down, and become good men under a wife’s influence. Our divorce courts testify too frequently to the fallacy of this doctrine.

How rarely is the educating influence of a husband referred to! and yet, a strong, good man is a wondrous power to educate, inspire, and help the woman whom he has made his wife. The fact that the wife is a woman does not insure infallibility. She has her faults, which he can help her to overcome; her weaknesses, which he can help her to remove; and false standards of life and its responsibilities, which it is his duty to remedy.

The oak and ivy idea of the relation of husband and wife is beautiful in poetry, but most unfortunate in life. And more than one oak sapling which promised to grow to equal any of its fellows, has been strangled to death, or left to a puny, stunted living by the ivy that smothered it by its too clinging tendencies. No husband does his duty as a husband, as a man, who allows a wife to throw on him the cares that it is her duty, and should be her privilege, to assume; and it is weak and unmanly for a husband to shirk the burden of helping a wife to see and take to herself that part of the business of life that belongs to her as a wife.

Hundreds of girls marry with no thought of the solemn duties that are theirs by right of their position as a wife. They have been educated to the oak and ivy theory, and immediately put it to practice.

Let every husband kindly, gently, lovingly help his wife to fill her place. What right has he to prevent her reaching her highest stature as a woman? None.

It is one of the severest temptations of a deep, strong love to stand between the object of that love and every trouble. But it is the highest privilege of true love to help the loved one bear every responsibility, meet every trouble that tends to develop strength of character and high purpose in life.

Men marry helpmates, not infants; women with souls, not dolls. And it is a weak, selfish love that refuses to help a wife to attain her highest altitude as a woman.