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Text: “And the Lord God said, It is not good
that the man should be alone; and I will make
an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused
a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept
and he took one of his ribs and closed up the
flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the
Lord God had taken from man, made he a wo
man, and brought her unto the man." Gen.
2 :iB, 21-22.
“The Lord hath created a new thing in the
earth; a woman shall compass a man.” Jer.
31:22.
AM free to say to you that I do not
feel worthy or able to present this
subject, as I feel it is most difficult.
First, because she is herself so hard
to define, and second, because the
sphere of a wife is so intricate, so
important, so hard to measure up
to. I do not hesitate to say that
she has the hardest place in all the
■ *— I
world of places to fill.
Speaking of defining a wife reminds me of a
thing I read some time ago. It transpired in
a school-room. A crowd of little boys were
asked by the teacher to define the word wife.
First one and then another tried and failed, and
finally a little bit of a tow-headed fellow said,
“A wife is a machine,” and the teacher said,
“What?” “A wife is a machine.” “What sort
of a machine?” He studied a moment and
scratched his head and said, “A machine what
a man buys down at the court house to wash
dishes and nurse babies.” Judging from what
many a woman has to go through with that
boy did not miss his definition very far, and I
do not say that in any sense claiming that a
woman who has such things as that should
hesitate for one moment to do them, but she
should not have to do it like a machine, with
no help, no encouragement, no sympathy.
The ordinary run of the duties of the wife are
of a humdrum character and I am perfectly
willing to admit it on my own part that we
husbands never properly appreciate that fact,
and many do not try to make it different.
THE FIRST STEP.
Now I think I am on pretty good terms with
you wives, and if I am I will proceed to say a
few things that I think will bring us on even
more intimate terms, if not so pleasant.
When we discussed “The Young Man and
His Family, the Husband,” we assumed that a
young man had examined himself with great
care and deliberation and honesty and had
found that he was worthy of marriage; that
he possessed all the qualifications that a young
man should have before he even gave serious
consideration to the question of matrimony,
and when we found that a young man pos
sessed these qualifications, our advice was that
he should at once marry, provided he had
found the girl that he loved better than any
body else on earth.
In speaking of “The Young Woman and Her
Family—The Wife,” I want to follow some
what the same line of reasoning, and we shall
assume that she has examined herself with
great care and with great caution and with
thorough interest and that she has found that
she' as far as possible possesses the qualifi
cations of marriage, as we laid down before.
Under such circumstances what is our advice
to the young woman? Marry. How long
should she wait<2 Just long enough to be sure
that the prelimimiries are settled, that these
things I have just mentioned are true, then
the next step for her is to get married. But
somebody says, “What about the question of
support? Should a woman cause a man to
wait and wait for marriage until he has ac
cumulated enough to take care of a family?”
Some of the happiest people that I have ever
seen in my life have been people who started
THE WIEE-THE MO THEE
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len (1 Broughton, D. D.
Stenographicilly reported for The Golden Age. —I lyright applied for
The Golden Age fcr July 29, 1909.
life as poor as a church mouse and have worked
up together hand in hand, and accumulated
what they have by honest toil and self-denial
together. I believe, everything else b&ing
equal, that that is far the best plan to follow.
I do not think any man has a right, as I said
on a former occasion when speaking to the
young men, to make a woman wait for him for
years while he accumulates to take care of her
when he is married. If he is an honest, up
right, industrious man and has a reasonable
prospect of a sufficient income to take care
of a family, he should go ahead. Nor do I
think that the woman should keep a man wait
ing and waiting on her. I think that the two
should be willing to begin at the bottom and
climb up the hill of life together.
But let not the young woman imagine that
there are no perils or problems ahead of her in
her married life. Though these things may be
true of herself and of her intended, there are
perils and problems incident to her life that she
is going to be called on to face immediately up
on entering into the marriage relation that she
never dreamed of.
There is, for example, the domestic peril or
problem. The domestic realm is her sphere.
The domestic world is a great big world in
which she has got to spend her time and it is
not to be despised, for it is after all the most
significant part of her life, this domestic world
in which she reigns as queen, in which her
will has to be largely supreme. Sometime ago
a woman came to me talking to me about be
coming an evangelist. She said, “I feel that
God has called me to be an evangelist.” I said,
“You do?” “Yes, I do. I am sure He has.”
“Are you married?” “Yes.” “How many
children have you?” “Seven." I said, “I
think you are right; the Lord has called you
to be an evangelist and He has done for you
what He has not done for the average evan
gelist. He has called a congregation for you
at the same time, and there is your evangelis
tic opportunity.” And she said, “Well, I am
satisfied that God has called me to the work
of a traveling evangelist.” “What are you go
ing to do with your children?” I said. “Oh,
my husband will look after them while I am
away?” I said, “Did you ever see a man fit
to raise a baby? Did you ever see a man that
could raise one, and besides, how is your hus
band going to care for them and keep at work
trying to support them?” “Well, he could get
a good housekeeper.” I said, “You would be
willing to turn your children over to be raised
by a housekeeper?” “Well,” she said, “I would
be there once in a while.” Once in a while!
But I had not gone very far before I found
that I would consider it a good thing for those
children for that woman to go out as an evan
gelist, or go anywhere. A woman who does
not appreciate the responsibility of her home
more than that net a'fit woman to have such
responsibility. She did not have sense enough
to raise seven children. She did not have the
burden of raising children upon her heart. The
woman that thinks that there is any sphere in
life superior to her sphere and the domestic
circle is totally unfit to shoulder the responsi
bilities of a wife. There is nothing that can
possibly come to you that can compare with
your opportunity as a wife and as a mother if
you use it for the glory of God and for the
good of your household.
THE HOUSEKEEPER.
There are several things that a woman in
the home ought to keep ever before her; and
it is as much her business to look after them
as it is for the business man to look after his
office, as the preacher his church. The first
that I want to mention is that she ought to
make her home neat and attractive for the
sake of her husband, her children and her
friends. By keeping her home neat and at
tractive she will hold her husband, help her
children and make friends; If she neglects at
that point, keeps a slovenly, unattractive house,
she will lose her hold on her husband, her chil
dren, and her friends. There is nothing that
attracts with such a degree of tenacity as a
neat and attractive home to a man and chil
dren, or to friends. I can not for the life of me
see how a woman as the queen of the home can
content herself with a slovenly, slouchy kept
house and expect that a husband who thinks
anything of himself or the children, that think
anything of themselves, can be held and made
to love their home. It is said that the easiest
way to a man’s heart is byway of his stom
ach, and I would add to that, byway of his en
vironments. I heard of a young wife who had
finished her college education and had come
home and married and settled down for busi
ness. Her husband, who was very fond of
good steaks, asked her to broil him one, and
he wanted it rare, and although she was a col
lege graduate and a young wife, she had no
conception whatever of what a rare steak
meant, and so she began and fried the thing
and fried it until it was hard enough to knock
a mule down with, and still kept on frying it
until it stuck up all around the sides, and then
he said, “Why, dear, I wanted it broiled, and
I wanted it rare,” and she said, “Well, 1 did
broil it until it reared up all around on the
sides.” Now that woman ought to have been
trained before she was married. A woman
who enters upon such a relationship with no
more training than that is sure to have many
a heartache over her mistakes, and besides it is
expensive to learn such things by experience.
A woman that does not know the ordinary,
simple everyday things of domestic life has
no sort of business getting married until she
does know, and for this reason I believe that
every woman who expects to be a wife, and
every wife who expects to hold her husband
and children, ought to study hard, as hard as
ever she did in school, the art of cookery, and
I say this with especial reference to the women
of the South. I tell you, the average Southern
woman knows practically nothing about the
science of cookery, and we are having prema
ture deaths in this country by the thousands
because our women have cared nothing at all
about the real science and art of cookery. The
average woman knows nothing at all about
these things, and she has never been impressed
with the fact that it is her duty to learn, to so
learn that she can take the ordinary dishes that
we have in our country and prepare them so as
to make them not only delicious and attrac
tive, but wholesome and helpful to the build
ing up of the body and the nourishment of life.
I feel very sure that one of the great needs
of the public schools of this country before
our girls pass out with their diplomas is a
department of cookery and housekeeping. A
great many of the girls in this country have to
work for their living after leaving school.
They have not the time to study these things.
There ought to be some kind of teaching that
is insisted upon in our public schools by which
and through which the girls could prepare
themselves for this line of work. Somethng
has got to be done. Our women ought to
know what is healthful for us to eat and what
is not. The only way she can know this is by
studying the science of foods, the combination
of ingredients, the proper mode of cooking,
etc. He has got something about him
now that gives folks pellagra. They tell
me that corn meal has got so proud
that it has jumped up fifteen cents on the peck.
But seriously speaking, the young women of
our country before they ever think of marriage
should be taught something of the ordinary
elementary principles of the most important
