Spouse

“ It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last. I tore my gown, I soil'd my locks with dust, And beat my breasts, as wretched widows must. 310 Before my face my handkerchief I spread, To hide the flood of tears I did not shed. ”

“ He is not ashamed to own the relation, but, as becomes a kind and tender husband, he speaks affectionately to her, and calls her his spouse, which cannot but strongly engage her to be faithful to him. ”

“ We should fear and love God that each may love and honor his spouse. Spouse is man or wife, persons who live in holy matrimony, as your parents do. Matrimony is instituted by God, and it is His will that husband and wife should love and honor each other, that they should faithfully live together till death parts them. ”

“ Let me now say in conclusion that this commandment demands not only that every one live chastely in thought, word, and deed in his condition, that is, especially in the estate of matrimony, but also that every one love and esteem the spouse given him by God. For where conjugal chastity is to be maintained, man and wife must by all means live together in love and harmony, that one may cherish the other from the heart and with entire fidelity. ”

“ Show me, dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear. ”

“ We hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the other side of the question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging of the censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to look up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his mood"? ”

“ O my Lord, we have only one to depend upon—the husband is the object of the wife's thoughts, of her understanding, her study, her acquisition, her meeting, her society; in short, this jewel—the husband is all to a virtuous woman. O thou letter! ”

“ Has she a call to be a wife, who takes a journey [Pg 309] for pleasure, leaving her husband to toil in a close office, and “have an eye, when at home, to the servants and children?”
Has she a call to be a wife, who values an unrumpled collar or crinoline more than a conjugal kiss?
Has she a call to be a wife, to whom a good husband’s society is not the greatest of earthly blessings, and a house full of rosy children its best furnishing, and prettiest adornment? ”

“ When she has thus obtained a wife for her husband, she carries her home, puts her to bed with her husband, where, having left her, she feasts with the bride's relations. There the children of the first marriage are produced, and the men of the bride's family put each their hands upon these children's heads, and afterwards take the oath in the usual manner, to live and die with them as their own offspring. ”

“ I shrieked, 'Not that, Sir! Any pain! So young
I am—a wife too—I am not my own,
But his—my husband's!' But they took my shawl,
And tore my tunic off, and there I stood
Before them all. . . . Husband! you love me still? ”

“ LEGAL MARRIAGE.—What would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? ”

“ Keep some wood for the winter fire, and remember what is expected of a married woman. Her husband must be able to count upon her in his home; it is she to whom he must entrust the key of his heart; his honour, his household, his welfare are in the hands of his wife. ”

“ For whom do children cry out in the night when they get frightened at a bad dream? Aye, to whom does the husband go when he has a business trouble too great or too delicate for outside ears? We, the men, are heads of the household in name, but you, O wives! are the heads of the household in fact, and it is your business to take your husband with you into the kingdom of God, and see that house prepared for heaven. ”

“ Give the elder son’s wife a year or two, cousin, for sometimes when seven years are passed barren, a woman will come to her true nature and bear a harvest of good children, for I have seen it so, and as for the lad’s saying he will not wed, why then he has a love somewhere, and we must find out who she is, and if she is fit for him to wed or not. ”

“ If a tale reaches her ears of a wife who has failed of her duty, or if the public newspapers record a divorce, then she awakens her husband to a sense of his superior happiness, and her own irreproachable virtue. ”

“ The responsibilities of a family should be understood, and the wife regarded in her utilitarian aspect as a keeper of the home, as a mother, and as a guardian of the home comforts; marriage itself, as the sacred garden of the future of mankind, in which each party to the contract has the privilege of contributing to that future. ”

“ Her hue is blue and red: the fiend who clingeth close is driven off. Well thrive the kinsmen of this bride the husband is bound fast in bonds. 29. Give thou the woollen robe away: deal treasure to the Brahman priests. This female fiend hath got her feet, and as a wife attends her lord. 30. Unlovely is his body when it glistens with this wicked fiend, What time the husband wraps about his limbs the garment of his wife. 31. Consumptions, from her people, which follow the bride's resplendent train,- These let the Holy Gods again bear to the place from which they came. ”

“ More and more the people are growing into a responsiveness to the sacredness of the marriage relation. The husband has increased in knowledge regarding his duty to his wife; the wife sees better her relation to her husband; the parents more clearly perceive what is possible and proper with reference to their children; and, therefore, we can claim thousands of homes which are sources of refinement, of love, and of purest pleasure. ”

“ Whoever shall leave his wife, and shall repent leaving her, she having been given to another husband; if the first husband overtake her with one foot in the bed and the other out; the first husband by law is to have her. ”

“ Husband and Wife. To preserve the marriage vow inviolate, the same pure love that brought the two together should be cultivated by home uses and home amusements such as readings, games, conversation, etc. If the wife have needle work, let the husband read or talk to her; if he be a literary man, let her presence cheer him on and inspire him to nobler and more refined productions. ”

“ Ah, look at the faithful wife now, as she strikes off her husband's fetters—listen to the glad music, destin ormai felice!—they take each other's hand—they go away proudly into the glad daylight—husband and wife together for evermore. ”

“ How often do we hear them say, If I had known what it had been to be a Wife, if I had known what it had been to be a Husband, and to have the Care of a Family upon me, and a House-full of Children to provide for, and take care of, I would never have married. Some indeed Repent upon a worse Foot. ”

“ The charms that helped to catch the Husband, are generally laid by, one after another, 'till the Lady grows a downright Wife, and then runs crying to her Mother, because she has transform'd her Lover into a downright Husband. ”

“ In truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended their separation, the last words of the wife to the husband being those of the most playful affection, while the language of the husband toward the wife was in a strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy, are in themselves a sufficient proof that, at the time of their parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. ”

“ The bride comes in, heavily veiled, in the company of her father or some old and revered relation, who clasps the hands of husband and wife and joins them together, making a short and appropriate speech of congratulation and good wishes for a happy conjugal existence. ”

“ The erring wife returning to find her husband married to another woman, to nurse one of her own children through his last illness without being recognised by him or by her husband, and to die at last in her husband's house with the merest shadow of consolation in the shape of his somewhat grudging forgiveness, presents us with a figure which cannot fail to be extremely pathetic. ”

“ V. MARRIED LIFE. In the picture relating to this subject we first show marriage as it was. The wife and husband are rarely by each other's side; when they meet they are in common attire, and receive each other with frowns; the wife, in grand costume, smiles on strangers, and so on with other episodes of former married life. ”

“ Thus the husband and wife exercise the duties of their marriage contract of love, protection, obedience, and the like, all the year long, and yet solemnize it by a more deliberate and reflecting act of the same love on the anniversary of their marriage. ”

“ Has that man a call to be a husband, who, when the rosy maiden he married is transformed by too early an introduction to the cares and trials of maternity, into a feeble, confirmed invalid, turns impatiently from the restless wife’s sick-room, to sun himself in the perfidious smile of one whom he would blush to name in that wife’s pure ears? ”

“ I have heard of one gentleman, who having lived in a state of domestic jarring with his wife, got her persuaded to concur with him in applying for a divorce.—This was soon obtained.—He then married another woman, with whom he was violently in love, and expected, as usual, eternal happiness. ”

“ Every one has his Humours, and every one their Fancies, and if we would honestly speak the Truth, every one his Faults, more or less, which if in any State, certainly in Matrimony we ought to connive at, and not to hate. Xa.You speak very right. Eu.It frequently happens that that mutual Love that ought to be between the Husband and Wife is cooled before they come to be throughly acquainted one with another. ”

“ Married to thy own brother! Three children, and two alive, all of the same flesh and blood! My son and my daughter lying together as husband and wife!—all confusion and distraction! Miserable family! What will become of us? ”

“ In the Order of Matrimony in the English Prayer Book, the husband promises to worship his wife, that is, to render to her all that respect and honour to which she is entitled by the command of God, and the station she holds. ”

“ Imagine a couple very happy together, surrounded by influences the most refined, leading a conservative life well intrenched as to money, the husband a partner and heir-apparent to an important law practice, the wife an attractive young woman who rides well and cares little for excitement. ”

“ The wife who comes to see the husband who has been taken away from her, the husband who creeps in towards a bed in which, so small and girlish and white, she lies waiting for him? The flowers, the little cheerfulnesses, and, behind it all, the doubt, the wondering, the ache, the sense of injustice. ”

“ A light word between husbands and wives sometimes goes unexplained, and the rift between them widens through life. I know some houses where the wife enters at one door and the husband at another; where if they meet on the stairs, they do not salute each other. Under the same roof they have lived for years and have not spoken. ”

“ Being the first wife, while in the heyday of life and youth having her husband to herself, in obedience to the law of God she sacrificed her own feelings at the shrine of duty, and in compliance with the laws of celestial marriage was willing that others should also share the affections of her husband. ”

“ And for this also you are beholden to me, by whose means it is that the husband is pleasant to his wife, the wife to her husband, and the house kept in quiet. A man is laughed at, when seeing his wife weeping he licks up her tears. ”

“ For a most beautiful thing is a thrifty wife, who clothes both herself and her husband with fair array of her own working; [714] in which all are glad—the children on account of their mother, the husband on account of his wife, she on their account, and all in God. ”

“ WIFE. Ay, so thou mayest, Much.
MUCH. That she sets new marks of all my old lady's linen (God rest her soul!) , and my young lord never had them since.
WIFE. Out, out! I took him them but for to whiten, as God mend me.
ELY. Leave off this idle talk; get ye both hence.
LIT. JOHN. I thank your honours: we are not in love
With being here.
We must seek service that are masterless. ”

“ A husband should act in five matters towards his wife—speaking sweetly to her, not despising her, not taking another wife, allowing her control (in cooking, &c.) , and supplying her wants.
45.
The duty of a wife towards a husband should be observed in five matters—punctuality, entertaining (relatives, &c.) , not taking another husband, protecting the property, and being skilful and assiduous.
46.
In five things should a person pay regard to friends—loving speech, liberality, looking after their interests, seeking their prosperity, considering them like himself. ”

“ A nice notion you have of a wife, to suppose she's nothing to think of but her husband's buttons. A pretty notion, indeed, you have of marriage. Ha! if poor women only knew what they had to go through. ”

“ The wife of a clergyman immersed in the many interests of a parish; the wife of a soldier or a merchant, who may have to live in many lands, with long periods of separation from her husband, and perhaps amid many hardships; the wife of an active and ambitious politician; the wife of a busy professional man [Pg 304] incessantly occupied outside his home; the wife of a man whose health or business or habits keep him constantly in his house, will each need some special qualities. ”

“ This is a comedy, and I must not preach lessons of life here: but I am obliged to remark that the husband must be proof, the sister-in-law perfect, where arrangements exist that keep them under one roof. She may be so like his wife! ”

“ Now all this can be managed, and, indeed, should be managed, on the wife’s part by a letter written to her husband, and on a man’s by a calm conversation with his wife, who of course will vow that nothing on this earth would induce her to marry again ”