The Other Side of the Question.
By Carrie B.
MUCH has been said and written about “Woman’s Sphere” and “Woman’s Duties.” “Hints to Wives” and “Hints to Mothers” stare at us from every newspaper corner, to say nothing of whole volumes devoted to the same subject, wherein the various social obligations of the weaker sex are discussed at length. This is all very well, and I hope the wives and mothers will profit by it, and do the work God has given them the best they can. Still the thought has sometimes dared to suggest itself to my mind, that there was another side to the question; and that it was “a poor rule that wouldn’t work both ways.” Doubtless it is all right and proper, and I am very much in favor of it myself, that the wife should greet her husband with a pleasant smile when he returns home at night, weary and depressed with care, from his daily labor. And I hope he will appreciate it, and return it with interest; for it is possible she may be weary and careworn too, and need the cheering influence of kind words and pleasant smiles from him. I have known a husband after an absence of several days, during which the whole burden of care and labor, in-doors and out, rested on his feeble wife, to enter his dwelling; and his wife looked up, hoping at least for a pleasant “good evening” from the lips she loved. But he did not so much as look at her. A friend whom he had not seen for two weeks, perhaps, happened to be in, whom he greeted with a hearty shake of the hand, and with whom he entered into pleasant conversation. Was that wife to blame if her eyes filled with tears, and her thoughts went back to the early years of her married life when he thought no society so pleasant as hers? Is she to be greatly censured if her heart ached a little, and secretly yearned for the old, loving words of the by-gone days? Did that husband have any idea of the shadow he cast on the spirits of his wife? Not till reflected back on himself, and then he did not mistrust that he was the cause of it. She dare not open her heart to him, for he would only be vexed that she was so silly as to care for such trifles. He knows not that he is shutting out the sunlight, and letting in the shadow, when he despises the small, sweet courtesies of life. He would stare at you with surprise and indignation if you should venture to hint that he treated his wife unkindly. He has no idea of doing any such thing. He conscientiously intends to do his whole duty by his family. He works hard to provide for them a comfortable subsistence. He wonders that his wife is dull and melancholy, and perhaps blames her for it. She toils on mechanically through her daily round of duties, year after year, growing old and faded, and almost hopeless, but he is blind to everything but her faults. As for the cares, and anxieties, and sufferings, mental and physical, that she endures as the mother of his children, he takes it all as a matter of course. They elicit no tender words of love and sympathy. Though he promised to love and cherish her once, it is so long ago he has nearly forgotten it. Somehow or other, I cannot get the idea out of my head that the wife and mother who faithfully tries to do her duty, has a right to expect some love and sympathy from the father of her children. I do not see how he can be a Christian and not feel the burdens she has to bear; and if he does feel them, will not that feeling sometimes find utterance in words? “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Will he treat her opinions with contempt? and trample on her womanly feelings? and despise her weakness? She cannot help it that she is a woman, and has a woman’s loving, sensitive nature. God made her so, and designed that she should have a softening, refining influence over the rougher and sterner nature of man. Man’s strength and woman’s tenderness should so blend in the marriage tie as to form a perfect union; so that it may truly be said of them, “They twain are one flesh.” “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself.” Right here, in the home circle, is the place for us to show whether the principles of the religion of Jesus Christ actuate us or not. A home where love is, and none but kind words are spoken, is a place where angels love to dwell.