Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/148

136 additional joys, benevolence should grow more diffusive. The narrowness and jealousy that would confine a wife or husband forever within four walls will not promote the sweet interchange of confidence that comes of love; but, on the other hand, a wandering desire for incessant amusement, outside the home circle, is a poor augury for the happiness of wedlock. Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, but not the boundary, of the affections.

Said the peasant bride to her lover, “Two eat no more together than when they are separate.” This is the hint that a wife ought not to court vulgar extravagance or stupid ease, because another supplies her wants. Wealth may obviate the necessity for toil and ill-nature in the marriage relation, but nothing can abolish its cares. “She that is married careth for her husband, how she may please him,” says the Bible; and this is the most pleasant to do. Matrimony should be entered into with a full recognition of its enduring obligations on both sides. There should be the most tender solicitude for each other's happiness, and approbation should wait on all its years.

Mutual compromises will maintain a compact that might otherwise become unbearable. Man should not be required to participate in all the annoyances and cares of domestic economy, nor should woman be expected to understand political economy. Fulfilling the different demands of their united spheres, their sympathies may blend in comfort and cheerfulness, each sustaining the other, — thus hallowing the copartnership of interests and affection, wherein the heart finds peace.

Tender words, and unselfish care for what promotes