The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-11-06
Hclpmeets or Companionss


The daily papers are constantly
sprinkled and stained with records OF
quarrels between husbands and wives,
says the Philadelphia Times. Divorces
are as frequent as they are destructive
of every finer domestic feeling and de-
basing to every higher quality OF hu-
man character. And the cases of do
nestle tragedy that get into the papers
are as units compared with the unwrit-
ten thousands of cases that ache them
selves out to some sanity and charity or
into silent graves. Plainly the remedy
for all this is neither in multiplied di-
vorces, which simply multiply the
wrongs, nor in bachelorhood and prosti-
tuition, nor in polygamy. Perhaps the
reform, if any is possible, must come
from different view of the marriage
relationship, from renewed and higher
conception of domestic duties, or sort
of swinging back to the old biblical
conception of things.
No man in his senses will war against
modern education. No man who has
tasted the advantages of knowledge
will throw anything, even hint, in the
way of others who are seeking the same
possession. But that modern education
in it's purely narrow secularism, with
its eye on individual rights rather than
on individual duties to higher law in
the first instance, has invaded the
sanctity of marriage VOWS few people
will deny who have watched the bust
ness in communities where the secular
ideas have had most perfect sway.
The old notion of wife was that she
was helpmeet. The modern terma
CANT idea is that she must be a com
panion or nothing. There is more diff
ference in these Gwo conceptions than
at first sight appears. The secular
person says, Certainly, there is.
Your Bible idea was that the woman
should be q drudge to her lordly hus
band" So the secular person gets In
his abuse of the Bible, and, at the
same time adds to his own poor blind
ness. Plainly, the scriptural idea of 9
wife as a helpmeet was that in all con
ceivable ways, and especially in the
temper and tone of her life, she should
be Joy and an inspiration to the hus
band, who as shepherd or warrior OF
mechanic or priest, was recognized as
the main burden bearer in the outside
world.
Because to-day there are, perhaps, @
| larger number of women who take VI
the burdens and carry them, that does
not alter the essential, prevailing, and
eternal order of things. Nor does il
follow that women the world over are
any more fitted for companions to mer
in the sense of sharing the actua
worlds work than they were of old
Mrs. Carlyle wanted to be companion
to her Thomas, and so made his life
miserable and her own. If, instead Of
prating about companionship and stitch
ing his boots for spite, she had wrought
the hidden charm of her nature into
his weary hours, Mr.. Froude woult
have had a different story to tell
George Lewis and George Eliot" tried
the companionship theory and sunk thu
best of both their lives in the business
So did John Stuart Mill and his Mrs
| Taylor. These are noted examples tina
little people of chrome culture are
aping, and so setting burning exam
pies for giddy world. Perhaps ther'
is a distinction worth considering il
the contrast of this old Bible and thi
modern idea of marriage, and tn
young people, at all events, may a
we'll look at the vision through boil
glasses for awhile.