Page:Woman and the Bible.pdf/24

20 widow, Ruth said to Naomi, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."

As soon as Ruth got a rich husband she did not follow after Naomi any more, and she got a new lodging place and a new god.

If Ruth was madly infatuated with her mother-in-law it is the only case in ancient or modern record, for ever since the wedding of Adam and Eve one prominent feature of the marriage system has been for the husband to hate the wife's people, and the wife to return the compliment.

The bad traits of children, the father says are inherited from the mother, and the mother says they are inherited from the father.

Bible men and women started this fashion, and it has been kept up to this very day.

Of course, the match of Ruth and Boaz was made in heaven. The Bible says that Naomi gave Ruth some instructions that we cannot record here. Naomi was doubtless selected by heaven to help on the matchmaking business.

From the number of misfits in holy wedlock, the heavenly matchmaker must have sublet the matchmaking contract to earthly incompetents.

If these women with their questionable methods of obtaining a husband are held up to women as models, the sooner they are deposed, the better for society.

And now comes Vashti, the glorious Persian Queen. We get but a glimpse of this woman in connection with the life of Esther. Now Esther paraded her charms before the drunken King Ahasuerus to take the place of Vashti, who, the Bible says, was the most beautiful woman in Persia.

We can not testify as to her beauty, but we can