An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him is as rottenness to the bones.
Proverbs 12:4, 5

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the Lord.
Proverbs 18:22

Psalm 128
How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
Who walks in His ways.
When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands,
You will be happy and it will be well with you.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine,
Within your house,
Your children like olive plants
Around your table.
Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed
Who fears the Lord.

How natural it is for us to turn our thoughts from last month's selection on love to this month's article, "Advantage of Matrimony." But, how advantageous is your marriage? And mine?

One thing that pains me is to know that the Christian family is not far behind the world's families in the area of divorce. Can this be because we are not conducting our families in the way the Lord wants, and therefore, cannot be the receivers of the glorious promises such as the one above from the Psalms? When you step back and look at your marriage, how different is it from the non-church-going family down the street? As I examine myself, am I the virtuous wife, submissive and obedient, or am I the scold whose husband would rather sit on a corner of the housetop?

I'm so glad I'm married to my husband. Are you? Now, we've had our share of disagreements and they can get loud, but I cannot think of anyone whom I would rather spend an afternoon or evening with, whom I would rather confide in than my husband. A gentleman friend of mine told me lately of how he used to work with his wife, then go home with his wife, plus during his spare time, he played on a sports team with his wife. A friend once asked him, "How do you do it? I couldn't stand it." My friend responded, "If I had your wife, I couldn't either." Isn't that sad, but unfortunately so typical. We wives set the tone in our homes and if you are a homeschooling mom like me, you know how difficult it is to remain Christ-like all day long. To not let the frustration of math lessons, diagramming sentences, changing dirty diapers, and on and on, sour your temper, your tone of voice and your attitude. I struggle with this many times during the day and I have to ask myself, "Am I acting like a jewel right now? If someone stepped in the door, would they describe me as my husband's crowning glory?" Unfortunately, they wouldn't.

In the next few months, we're going to be examining marriage. We're going to look at some hard issues and look at some Bible verses that many women do not want to read, much less apply. I hope you'll come back. Even if you are not married but are looking forward to that day, come back, we're going to discuss dating, courtship and how to prepare for that day.

and now, on to our article.

Advantage of Matrimony

from

Stepping Stones, or Aids to a Successful Life

by

T. L. Haines and L. W. Yaggy
1911

If you are for pleasure, marry; if you prize rosy health, marry. A good wife is heaven's last best gift to man; his angel of mercy; minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels. Her voice is his sweetest music; her smiles his brightest days; her kiss the guardian of innocence; her arms the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry his surest wealth; her economy his safest steward; her lips his faithful counselor; her bosom the softest pillow of his cares; and her her prayers the ablest advocates of heaven's blessings on his head.

Woman's influence is the sheet anchor of society; and this influence is due not exclusively to the fascination of her charms, but chiefly to the strength, uniformity, and consistency of her virtues, maintained under so many sacrifices, and with so much fortitude and heroism. Without these endowments and qualifications, external attractions are nothing; but with them, their power is irresistible.

Beauty and virtue are the crowning attributes bestowed by nature upon woman, and the bounty of heaven more than compensates for the injustice of man. Sometimes we hear both sexes repine at their change, relate the happiness of their earlier years, blame the folly and rashness of their own choice, and warn those that are coming into the world against the same precipitance and infatuation. But it is to be remembered that the days which they so much wish to call back, are the days not only of celibacy but of youth, the days of novelty and improvement, of ardor and of hope, of health and vigor of body, of gayety and lightness of heart. It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and we are afraid that whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn.

Once for all, there is no misery so distressful as the desperate agony of trying to keep young when one cannot. We know an old bachelor who has attempted it. His affectation of youth, like all affectations, is a melancholy failure. He is a fast young man of fifty. He plies innocent young ladies with the pretty compliments and soft nothings in vogue when he was a spoony youth of twenty. The fashion of talking to young ladies has changed within thirty years, you know, and this aged boy's soft nothings seem more out of date than a two-year-old bonnet. When you see his old-fashioned young antics - his galvanic gallantry, so to speak, and hear the speeches he makes to girls in their teens, when he ought to be talking to them like a father - you involuntarily call him an old idiot, and long to remind him of that quaint rebuke of grand old John: "Thou talkest like one upon whose head the shell is to this very day." That is how he seems. He is old enough to have been almost full-fledged before you were born, and here he is trying to make believe that he is still in the days of his gosling-green, with the shell sticking on his head to this day! It is a melancholy absurdity. One cannot be young unless one is young. Only once is it given to us to be untried and soft, and gushing and superlative, and when the time comes for it all to go, no sort of effort can hold back the fleeting days.

"I wish that I had married thirty years ago," soliloquized an old bachelor. "Oh! I wish a wife and half a score of children would start up around me, and bring along with them all that affection which we should have had for each other by being early acquainted. But as it is, in my present state, there is not a person in the world I care a straw for; and the world is pretty even with me, for I don't believe there is a person in it who cares a straw for me."

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