The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-06-12
JOSEPH BREIC-
Working Wife
Can Do Harm

The man who loves his wife in the way that a wife
ought to be loved does not want her working in an
office or a factory.
If it is inescapably necessary that she do SO, then
1t is inescapably necessary. But the right kind of hus-
band will not be content until the necessity has been
ended.
Neither will he lightly conclude that in his case
the word necessity" applies. To the contrary, he will
be difficult to convince that it does apply.
The right kind of husband is not a materialist who
puts furniture, or Grapes, or c~arpeting, or an auto, or
money in the bank, ahead of his wife's true happiness.
He is not a timorous soul, either, coWed by adver-
Using or by public opinion into feeling that he is obi
gated to keep up with the Joneses in worldly things.
Far from it. The right kind of husband is a manly
man with a mind of his own. He is far more concerned
about his wife's good than about what some ~neighbor
might think.
He knows that the good of his wife is not best
served by sending her out to work. He knows some
thing about the temptations and the stresses of the
workaday world.
He does not choose to subject his wife to such
strains. Nor does he forget that he has the primary
responsibility for protecting his marriage from harm.
The manly and religious husband knows that it
Is his duty to be the guardian of his marriage, and to
safeguard his wife from dangers to her pure wifelinesS.
The right kind Of wife, furthermore, wants that
kind of husband. She wants a man who will be strong
and industrious and courageous, and will reverence
her womanhood.
Unless she is very foolish, what she wants out of
marriage is full wifehood-not mere convenient asso-
citation and pooling of earning power.
The right kind of husband sees his wife as some
one incomparably more important than an additional
bread winner and an occasional companion.
He pays her the tribute of looking upon her as
wife and mother, and as the highest kind of maker
this earth knoWs-the maker of a home and family.
Full Wifehood means motherhood-even if it must
be that very noble form of motherhood called
adopted" It means the making of children not merely
in bringing them forth; but in rearing them for mature
perfection under God.
1t means surrounding Gods children with the
right conditions for their physical, Psychological and
spiritual development. Full wifehood means making
the home into what a home ought to be.
This and nothing less, is what the true and manly
husband wants for his wife. And this is what the truly
womanly wife wants her husband to want for her.
For this cause, countless husbands, measuring up
to their husbandhood, have worked long and hard and
unrenittingly; and in the process have achieved shin
ing success.
The wife who works when it is not an inescapable
necessity is not doing her husband good, but harm.
She is encouraging him to be less than he is capable
of being.
She is robbing him of the incentive for the kind
of application and effort he needs if he is to achieve
everything he ought to achieve, and grow to full stat
ure of manhood.
She is depriving him, too, of the rich joy that
comes in later years when a man can look upon his
children as they begin their own lives, and know that
he made this possible.
Nowhere is there a house imposing enough, or an
auto cleaning enough, to compensate a husband for
the children he did not rear to maturity.
Nowhere is there any social position, or any Jewel
or luxury, or financial preferment, that can make 1t
up to a wife for the little ones she did not make a
home for.
Pope John appealed to us to make every home
into a shrine Of religious feelings and a school of vir-
tues" like the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth.
This is what a real husband and a real wife want.
This is what is permanent and happneSs-glVlng
amid all the baubles of life.