Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1884-10-24
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Vie slaily arers are conatanfy
sprinkled and stained with records OF
Inarrels between hus Islands end wives.
Divorces are IS freq emf IS they are
destructive Of every finer domestic feel
ing and debasing 70 every higher quail
of human character. And the cases
of domestic tragedy that get into the 9
al,ers arc MS uniitts compared with the.
unwritten thousands of cases that ache
themsel Ives ont to some sanity and chart
~ OF into silent graves. Plainly the
remedy for Al this is neither multiplied
Divorces, which simply multiply the
YFron gs, nor in .bachelorhood and pros.
titution, nor III poly gamy. Perhaps
the reform, il any is possible, must
come from different view Of the mar
riage relationship, from renewed and
higher conception OF domestic duties,
ora sort of swinging iAs Ok to the old
Biblical eoncept of things. Il
No man iii his senses will war against
modern education. No man who has
tasted the advantages of knowledge
will throw any thing, even a hint in the
way of others who are seeking the game
possession. But that modern educa-
ton in it's purely narrow seculsrisn,
with its eye on individual rights rather
than On individual duties to a higher
Jaw ii the first instance, has invaded
the sanctity of marriage and made q by
word OF marriage vows few people will
deny who have watched the business in
communities where the secular ideas
VI have had most perfect sway.
The old notion of wife was that she
was helpmeet The modern terma-
CANT id Ga is that she must be compan-
ion or nothing. There is more differ
ence in these two conceptions than at
first sight appears. The secular per-
son says certainly there is. Your Bible
idea was that woman should be drudge
to her lostiIy husband So the secular
person gets III his abuse of the Bible
and at the same time adds to his own
poor blindness. Plainly. the Scriptur-
al; idea of wife, as helpmeet, was
That in all conceivable ways and espec-
tally in the temper and tone of her life
she should be a Joy and an inspiration
70 her husband, who, as shepard o.
warrior or mechanic or priest, was
recognized as the main burdenb bearer
in the outside world,
Because o-daY there are perhaps g
larger number of women who take up
these outsida burdens and carry them
that does not alter the essential, pre-
vailing and eternal order Of things.
Nor does it follow that women the world
over are any more fitted for companions
to men in the sense Of sharing their act
us1 worlds work than they were Of old.
Mrs. Csrlyle wanted to be a companion
to her Thomas, and SO made his life
miserable and her own. If, instead Of
prating about conapanionship and stitch
ing his boots for spite, she had wrought
the hidden charm of her nature into his
weary hours Mr. Fronde would have
had different story to tell. George
Lewis and "George Elior'' tried the
companionship theory and sunk the
best of both their lives in tho business.
So did John Stuart Mill and his Mrs.
Taylor. These are noted examples that
little people Of chrono culture are aping
and so setting burning examples for q
giddy world. Perhaps there is dis
tinction worth considering in the con-
trast of this old Bible and this modern
idea of marriage, andthe young people,
at all events, may as veil look at the
vision through both glasses for awhile.