The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-03-11
Talmage on Flirting.

Il shall this morning take it for
granted that your marriage is all right,
and l shall 60 on and advise you how to
treat your wife. My ambition is to tell
you more plain truth than you have ever
heard in any three-quarters of an hour
in all your life. And first of all | charge
you to realize the responsibility of hav-
ing taken her away from her low
ing parents and from the homestead
In which she was sheltered. 1t is amaz-
ing that any of us have the sublimitV of
impudence to ask such transfer to
home that is not yet constructed. How
ought you to treat her? My brother,
you ought to treat her well; you ought
to treat her better than any one in the
universe, excepting God Almighty. Her
name should sound sweeter than music
to you and her eyes, though swollen
with watching child sick with scarlet
fever, should be brighter to you than a
May morning. She has first mortgage
on you, body, mind and soul. Now,
why don't you pay your debts? You
believe in the force of contract. If
you promised kindness and faithfulness
and have not fulfilled these promises,
bAiNh ) Ot nav II lHIuCSo Ollt
into conlugal partnership and should be
imprisoned for obtaining goods under
false pretenses and should be mulcted
for large amount of damages. ., full
fill your contracts! Men of business
have lots of contracts and sometimes
they take them and read what the party
of the first part and the party of the sec
ond part agreed to do. Have you for
gotten your contract? Then you had
better take, buy, or borrow an Episcopal
prayer-book and read the marriage con-
tract. The marriage relation is more
sacred after baptism of tears-tears
over the lost, over the grave.
Before marriage when you came into
the house you were as full of smiles and
politeness as peach orchard in bios
som week. Now you come in the house
and say, I've lost money to-day You
sit down at the table, criticising the
food, and snatch up the evening news
paper. The children are awed at the
domestic autocrat. Though filled with
healthful curiosity, they must ask no
questions; the wife has had ANNOYANCE
in the kitchen until her nerves are al
like spikes. My brother, you have no
appreciation Vi Tue 1dcU tldG your chill
dren will be soon grown up or in ceme-
teries and you will have no opportunity
to influence them; the house in which
you live will go into other hands and
you yourself will be gone. Marriage is
a bargain. In some lands people pur-
chase their wives with cattle and sheep.
In our land marriage is an affectionate
bargain in which man promises pro-
lection, support, companionship, and
love. Are you fulfilling all that bar
gain? will tell you what you all know.
Some men show more respect to other
wives than their own, and many man
there is who allows his wife to carry a
scuttle of coal upstairs who will clear
a room with one bound to pick up an
other lady's pockethandkerchief Flirta-
ton is devilish. Why don't you put it
in the bond, you domestic Shylock?
Why don't you have it understood be-
fore you are pronounced husband and
wife9 A married man who INDUCES in
Irritation is either fraud or rake l
care not how high his or her standing,
| would not give three-cent piece that
had been three times clipped for the
virtue of masculine or feminine firt."