The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1880-10-14

have been demonstrated, and in
stead OF one rib taken, Adam would
not have had rib left. The hu.
man race was to bridge over the
flood. How manv wives did Noah
take into the ark? His wife, and
each of his sons a wife. If polyga-
my had been right, they would each
have taken a dozen, and so much
larger a number would have been
saved from drowning. The men
and women in each generation and
in all countI les since the world
stood have been about equal, or, IN
cases of slight exceptions, men have
been in the mnjority. No surplus
of wcmanhood. Does that look as
if the Creator of the race favors po-
lygamy? The Bible is not more an
tagonistic to theft and blasphemy
and murder than it is to polygamy.
Yea, in proportion as civilization is
=: ..c,,... >.,,rS-a0e, ssiia Al proportion
as general good morals prevail, plu
rality of wives is discountenanced.
Where polygamy exists, there may
be a house, large house, a splen-
did house, but no home. How
much peace and prosperity in Eng
land would there be if four or five
or twenty queens attempted with
Victoria TO occupy the same throne
or live in Windsor Castle? just as
much as there can be quiet and hap
piness in domestic establishment
where more than one wife attempts
to be queen. One of the mightiest
foes OF the family relation is polyg-
amy.
Women must be recognized as an
equal Of the man. All that poetry
about man being an oak and wo-
man the ivy, is stale, fiat and un-
true. In tens of thousands of cases
of financial disaster, where men
have been flung and trodden under
foot, they have gone home deter
mined to give up the struggle of
life, wishing they were dead. AL
though when a man says he wishes
he was dead he lies. Attempt to
kill him and see how much he wants
to be dead. But, utterly discour-
aged, men have gone home, and the
wife has given encouragement; the
wife has, by her faith in God, bid
den him to be of good cheer; the
wife has told him not to mind the
misfortune, and she planned out
other ways of getting along, and, on
the strength of the wife's courage,
the husband has been helped into
renewed prosperity Who is the
oak now, and which of the twain is
the ivy? In order to domestic fe-
licity, the wife must at least be
treated as the equal. l like the ring
of that worldly merchants manli-
ness, who, when some one called on
him soliciting aid for missionary
society, said: 'I don't see the i'm
pCrtance of that institution myself,
and therefore must decline sub
scribing; but you may call on my
wife; perhaps she will take a differ
ent view of the subject. and, if so,
we will act according to her pleas
ure." Such q scene as that could
not be enacted in a polygamous
household.
Again, all those entertain ments
are the foe of the domestic relation
which take men from their families
a majority of evenings. l am not
ready to make indiscrinate condem
nation of club-houses. L believe
that many of them have their uses.
If 1 had an unhappy home, or no
home OF all, / would seek out the
best club house 1 could find, buy
admission, and spend all my eve
nings- there in conversation and
reading. But it has always been a
mystery to me how a man going to
business at or 8 o'clock in the
morning, and not getting home till
the evening repast, or Z in the eve
ming, can find much time for club
house. 1t seems to me that from 8 TO
8 in the evening a man ought to be
able to stand it with his family or
take some of them out for purposes
of recreation. l never knew a man
ruined by being too domestic in his
habits and spending his evenings at
home, while 1 could give the roll of
a thousand who lost their morals
and their fortunes and their souls
by just the opposite course. When
man likes any place more than his
home, look out for breakers. How
can you tell whether he likes his
home better than other places? BY
this rule-a man stays the most
where he likes it the best. One
man out of hundred has a will so
strong and his morality so confirm
ed that he can spend every night
away from home for forty years and
keep pure and honest and sober.
But the ninety-nine out of the hun
dred by such absenteeism from
home are depleted in moral strength
and the years are a pair of stairs to
let them down to immortality and
death. Ask the good, honest, chris
tian women of Brooklyn, what they
think of the institutions which take
the husband and father and son
away night after night and for
months and for years. There are
club houses no doubt very good,
and club houses no doubt very pol
luted. 1 speak of neither the first
rate nor the worst, but of the aver
age club house, when | say it is the
worst foe of christian life in New
York and Brooklyn.
But who build most OF the club
houses Of our great citiesF l an
swer, in many cases, the women. A
woman complains that the same at
tentions are not paid her now, since
marriage day, that were paid her