Choosing a Wife by Dr. J. R. Miller

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Nov 26, 1903

Choosing a Wife

By Dr. J. R. Miller

A WISE marriage leads a man to the noblest, truest, fullest, and best life. Thousands of men owe all their success and prosperity to their choice of a wife. She has been the good angel of destiny. A man wants a wife who will make something of him, whose influence will ever inspire him to do his best. What kind of a woman should she be?

For one thing, a man does not want a mere toy wife, something too fine, too ethereal for real use. She should be a woman who can bear her share of the burdens, who can endure toil and sacrifice, and grow all the lovelier meanwhile.

Again, the wife a man chooses should be a good housekeeper. To some romantic young lovers this will seem a very prosaic feature to put into the picture. But never mind; they will not be many weeks married before they will come down out of the clouds to walk on common earth, and then, alas! if the poor woman does not prove a good housewife!

There are women who live in sentimental dreams, neglecting meanwhile the duties that lie close to their hands. Good breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, good bread, in a word, good housekeeping—far more than any young lovers dream does wedded happiness depend upon just such unromantic things as these.

One of St. Paul's special counsels for young women is that they be “keepers at home,” as our common version renders it, and that is good, too; but in the Revised Version it reads “workers at home;” that is, the place of a young wife's most sacred duty is in her own home. No doubt women have a wide field for Christlike usefulness in ministering to human need and sorrow outside; but in performing such ministry, however beautiful and noble, a wife should never neglect her divinest duties, which lie within her own doors.

Another suggestion is that in choosing a wife a young man should look for a woman of sweet temper. Nothing else can take the place of love in a home, nothing else can supply its lack. There are many women who have so much of the spirit of love and gentleness that they fill their homes as with the fragrance of heaven and the calm and peace of God.

In choosing a wife a wise young man will seek for one who will enter with zest into all his life, who will stand close beside him in the day of struggle and adversity, and who will ever inspire him to noble and brave things.

Once more, it needs no argument to prove that a young man should choose none but a good woman for his wife. A worldly man may imagine that he does not want a pious wife; but, if the truth were confessed, even such a man, down deep in his heart, would rather have for his wife a woman who reads her Bible, prays and lives a godly life, than one who is prayerless, godless, and worldly. Religion adorns and beautifies a woman's character, clothing it with tender grace. Even a prayerless man feels safer in his home if his wife kneels morning and night before God.—Dr. J. R. Miller.